Overview

Warehousing and open space:

• 1,000,000 square feet of warehouses and transit sheds.
• 25 acres of paved open space for laydown of steel and project cargo.
• 8 berths (up to 42' MLLW).

Principal inbound cargoes are refrigerated commodities, fertilizer, cement, breakbulk commodities, and forest products (including newsprint, cut paper and cut sheet stock). Primary export cargoes include refrigerated cargo, breakbulk and bulk commodities.

The Cold Storage Facility is a 300,000 square foot, state-of-the-art on-dock facility that provides a carefully controlled atmosphere for storage of a wide variety of fresh produce and perishables. These include meat, poultry, seafood, citrus, bananas, apples, pears, kiwi, avocados, broccoli, concentrates, dairy and egg products, grapes, kabocha squash, mangoes, melons, stonefruit, strawberries and tomatoes.

IMC Chemicals, Inc (IMC) operates a state-of-the-art bulk loader at this terminal. The loader, rated as one of the world's most efficient at 2,000 tons per hour, is used to export soda ash, sodium sulfate, borax, pyroborates, bicarbonate of soda and other bulk commodities.

In the past four years, total bulk tonnage for IMC and other bulk tenants has steadily increased from 157,000 metric tons to 744,000 metric tons annually.

• Siwertel ship unloader installed in 1998 by Cemex.
• Three 1,000,000 gallon liquid bulk storage tanks with pipelines to berth.
• 300 E Gottwald mobile harbor crane with a 100-ton lift capacity.

Schematic Rendering

Download a schematic rendering of the Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal:

• Tenth Avenue Terminal Schematic Rendering (2.15 MB)

Crane Description

The Port of San Diego has a Gottwald HhMK300Ee mobile harbor crane for cargo handling at the Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal.

Refrigerated Container Facility and Cold Storage

Refrigerated Container Facility

• 20.7-acre refrigerated container facility
• 511 refrigerated container plugs (480V each)
• 294,000 sq. ft. refrigerated warehouse
• Three 2,500KV substations
• A 10,000-square-foot maintenance and repair building
• A container wash structure

Cold Storage Facility

• Deep water multiple vessel berthing
• Depth alongside wharf: -30 feet to -35 feet (-9.14 meters to -10.67 meters)
• Vessel to cold storage: 300-800 feet
• 8 rooms with individual temperature and humidity control
• Additional off-dock storage: 2,400,000 cubic feet freezer/chill and 480 tons blast-freezing capability
• Refrigeration-Ammonia-based refrigerant system utilizing a
  secondary brine cooling media
• Each cool room has a separate brine system and pump rooms to
  prevent odor/gas from traveling between rooms
• Capable of rapid pull down of product temperatures under controlled humidity from 60°F to 34°F in 24 hours
• Computerized inventory system with barcoding
• 24-hour operation with temperature monitoring and terminal
  security
• Adjacent railcar siding and truck loading
• U.S. Customs and federal (USDA) inspection services
• Minutes from Interstates 5, 8 and 15

Berthing and Transit Sheds

The Port has 6 berthing areas and one specialized berthing pier.  Read more information about berth space and depths alongside the pier below.

Specialized Berthing

Piers, Wharves and Docks

The Tenth Ave Marine Terminal is a 384 hectare complex (96 acres) opened in 1958. It is situated along the San Diego-Coronado Bay Bridge. It is in the center of commercial shipping activity and contains many bulk-handling operations of the port, including a bulk silo complex, a cold storage facility and a traveling bulkloader and unloader for chemicals and other dry bulk products. Read more information about the terminal below.

Warehousing, Distribution and Other Services

San Diego is the only major West Coast port combining all the assets of a great natural, all-weather harbor and extensive on-dock distribution facilities with the resultant elimination of the expense of local drayage from on-dock to off-dock warehouses. This provides the importer with a competitive advantage over all other West Coast ports, especially for both chilled and frozen cargoes.

The distribution services available at the marine and air terminal facilities of San Diego have become a major factor in the distribution of high-value imported merchandise.

Bulk Loading and Handling

Bulk loading facilities are available at shipside for loading or discharging of soda ash, potash and other dry bulk commodities of a free-flowing nature. The loading is accomplished by the Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal bulkloader, which has a rated capacity of 1,800 tons per hour.

The bulkloader boom can travel 152.4 meters laterally while being extended or raised to accommodate loading of nearly any size or type of ship. Berthing space for bulkloading operations stretches 243.84 meters with depths of up to 12.8 meters at mean low water. Railcar discharging operations are covered, allowing all-weather operation.