The Ohio River port at Jeffersonville is set for a major upgrade. Ports of Indiana secured a $25 million federal BUILD grant, announced July 7, 2026, to expand its Jeffersonville terminal and handle a lot more heavy cargo, with the work slated to finish in 2028.
Project Scope
The project increases the port’s lift capacity by more than 800%, doubles its barge-to-rail transloading capacity, and builds the port’s first general cargo facility located outside the floodplain. Together those moves let Jeffersonville take on larger steel shipments and oversized project cargo it can’t fully handle today. The grant covers a slice of a broader capital program at one of Indiana’s three public ports on the inland waterway system.
Why It Matters
Inland ports are quietly critical to the industrial buildout, and steel is the tell. As Gulf Coast and Midwest mills expand and manufacturers reshore, the freight has to move, and barge-rail transfer points like Jeffersonville are where cost and capacity get decided. Lifting capacity eightfold isn’t a rounding-error improvement; it changes what customers the port can serve. Getting the new cargo facility out of the floodplain also hardens the terminal against the flooding that repeatedly knocks river infrastructure offline. The federal BUILD program keeps steering money toward exactly this kind of unglamorous freight-logistics work, where a modest grant unlocks outsized throughput.
Project Team & Details
| Owner / Client | Ports of Indiana |
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| Status | Planned |
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| Funding Source | Public (Federal) |
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