Heavy equipment business at crucial time for Brunswick port

BRUNSWICK ― Acres of new cars give the Georgia Ports Authority’s Colonel’s Island terminal a Matchbox collection feel. BMWs and Mercedes-Benz sedans over here, Kia SUVs and Chevy pickups over there.

Just like with a child’s play space, though, it’s the Tonka-like toys that attract the eye. Those tractors, bulldozers, dump trucks and cranes in John Deere green and Caterpillar yellow have helped Brunswick weather a trade slowdown prompted by President Donald Trump imposing steep tariffs on passenger vehicles last April.

Brunswick is the nation’s busiest port for autos and other cargo that rolls on and off ships and is known in the industry as Ro-Ro. Increasingly, it is positioned as a global hub for farm, construction and mining equipment, moving more than 53,000 units in 2025. That business has offset a more than 7% dip in autos.

The machinery, known as high and heavy cargo, made up 6% of Brunswick’s business mix in 2025 compared to 3% in 2023. Much of that growth has been siphoned away from Baltimore’s port, which Brunswick supplanted as the nation’s busiest Ro-Ro port in 2024. Baltimore has slumped since a deadly March 2024 bridge collapse that closed the Maryland terminal for 11 weeks.

“We originally invested in infrastructure for high and heavy because we saw it as an added revenue stream and a value-added offering for the carriers that regularly call here,” said Flavio Batista, the authority’s chief commercial officer. “It’s become a way to diversify our mix.”

Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez

Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez

Brunswick is one of two coastal seaports in the Georgia Ports Authority. Brunswick handles automobiles, heavy equipment and other wheeled vehicles along with break-bulk cargo, or goods too large to fit into shipping containers. The Port of Savannah is GPA’s container port and ranks as the third-busiest in the country.

Port facilities support 651,000 jobs and contribute $174 billion in sales activity annually in the state, a 2025 University of Georgia study showed.

Finishing center gives port Ro-Ro edge

Brunswick has became a major player in the high and heavy cargo sector over the past 20 years as manufacturers moved to shift finishing work on the highly customized products away from their factories and closer to delivery points.

Colonel’s Island is home to an equipment processing center where final assembly is done. Shops equipped with 15-ton overhead cranes assist workers in mounting buckets, scoop arms and other parts on earth movers. Once put together, the machinery gets beautified in spacious paint booths.

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The approach shrinks lead times, or how long it takes from order to delivery, from 6 to 8 months to 10 to 30 days.

Brunswick’s finishing center, operated by shipping giant Wallenius Wilhelmsen, does assembly for 23 different manufacturers. Their yard has a 5,700-machine capacity.

Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez

That machinery storage area, along with others around the terminal and on the docks, is lined with concrete 16 to 18 inches thick. The pavement is designed to withstand wear and tear caused by machinery weighing 80 to 100 tons and construction and mining equipment that moves via all-terrain steel tracks, like those used on Army tanks.

“The infrastructure here has set us apart and helped us grow our business,” said Craig Skinner, general manager of the Wallenius Wilhelmsen facility.

Baltimore port struggles after accident

Brunswick is disrupting the long-held “four corners” strategy favored by high and heavy manufacturers. Traditionally, cargo moved through geographically disparate ports — Seattle-Tacoma in the Pacific Northwest, Houston on the Gulf, Georgia in the Southeast and Baltimore in the Northeast — but Brunswick is capturing more East Coast market share.

Brunswick’s overall cargo growth has nearly tripled Baltimore’s since 2012.

Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez

The machinery cargo trend has surged since the Baltimore bridge tragedy. Six construction workers died when a cargo vessel leaving the port lost power and drifted into a support pier of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, collapsing the span.

Baltimore’s high and heavy business was off 30% in 2025 compared to the 12 months prior to the collapse.

In Brunswick, the recent completion of an on-terminal rail extension to link to the processing centers increases efficiency, with rail lines connecting Brunswick to the farms of the Midwest and construction hubs of the Northeast.

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Yet the Southeast’s ongoing development boom remains a major driver of Brunswick’s business. Worksite equipment rental giants, such as United Rentals and Sunbelt Rentals, are among the biggest customers for the manufacturers that utilize the Brunswick finishing center.

Brunswick is also a popular export port for Georgia-based manufacturers. Caterpillar (Athens), John Deere (Augusta), JCB (Savannah) and Kubota (Gainesville) all operate assembly factories in the state and ship Georgia-made equipment overseas through the Colonel’s Island terminal. Exports make up 30% of the business.

“This is a global hub in a market that lot of people don’t have a clue about,” Batista said.