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Final Preparations Underway For Port Detroit Debut

DETROIT (WWJ) - It's been a few years since U.S. Senator Carl Levin, along with city and county leaders, announced birth  of the new Port Authority project.

Now the city of Detroit is set to debut its new Wayne County Port Authority headquarters next month.   

WWJ's Pat Sweeting took the "grand tour" as construction crews poured the final concrete for a portion of the Riverwalk, reporters were given a look at the two floored - 21,000 sq. ft. interior.

- View Photos Here -

"It's significant to note that, not so long ago, this spot we are standing on, was a nondescript parking lot that we acquired from General Motors," says Ehrlich Crane, V.P. of White Construction.

Crane outlined some of the challenges that the crew faced.

"Certainly doing work on the waterfront with the soil conditions and certainly unknown hazards that may be in the water, you don't have the ability to just look down and see, but also some of the weather that we've had in the last two years have been a little bit of a challenge working with concrete and other things. Overall, everything went very smooth and was very successful," says Crane.

Steve Olinek is Deputy Director of the Detroit - Wayne County Port Authority.

"Well, I do know that we have a vessel called by a small Great Lakes crew ship, twice in July this year, in future years we hope to develop that, as I said we can't do that without a facility, so we'll market Detroit very aggressively to put it on the map," says Olinek.

When Port Detroit opens for business the building will host various events and cruise ships, naval vessels and other large watercraft will dock there.

The new Port Detroit building is at Atwater at Bates.

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