To expand Port Everglades, the facility arranged for the construction of the Southport Turning Notch, a series of five new berths designed to handle the future influx of Super Post Panamax Container cargo ships. However, with the seaport surrounded by environmentally sensitive mangrove and manatee habitats, Broward County needed approval from the Florida Dept. of Environmental Protection to destroy eight acres of existing mangroves residing in the footprint of the planned expansion site by first creating a 16-acre mangrove habitat as a mitigation strategy.

Destruction of the eight acres and construction of the Southport Turning Notch could only begin after the newly planted habitat had grown for 12 months.

Under a construction manager at-risk agreement, Bergeron Land Development agreed to build the mangrove habitat on an accelerated 13-month schedule. The project transformed the 16-acre site’s terrain, which was largely overgrown with invasive vegetation and littered with decades’ worth of construction and demolition debris. In July of 2016, the project team marked the habitat’s one-year milestone, which indicated that the installed mangroves were sustaining proper growth necessary for long-term viability. As a result, Broward County approved removal of the existing mangrove easement, thus allowing the start of the turning notch expansion.

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