Top 5 for 2025: The Port’s Big Moves for the New Year

The start of a new year is the perfect moment to consider what the Port of Portland does best – move with purpose to make big things happen.

With that in mind, we’re sharing an inside look at our Top 5 for 2025: five notable priorities that you’ll see move forward in the year to come.

1. Set our strategic plan

In 2025, we’ll complete the update of our strategic plan, which will serve as the headwaters for all our planning at the Port and will take us into 2030.

The plan refines our focus, centering the “what for” of our work rather than a list of projects and tasks. At this point, we have gathered feedback on major themes from Port commissioners and our leadership team. After we finalize the plan with their feedback, we will begin implementing in the spring.

2. Know what’s next for Navigation

Throughout the Port’s history, efforts to maintain a navigation channel for the safe and cost-effective movement of goods along the river from Portland to the Pacific have shaped our region and economy. But doing this important work requires two things: funding and the right equipment.

Now that alternatives analysis and financial analysis studies are complete and we’ve resolved the funding mechanism for new equipment, we’ll replace our support craft and begin work on a bigger project – replacing the 80-year-old Dredge Oregon. While we won’t have a new dredge in place until 2030, here’s a rendering of the new vessel.

3. Keep making PDX better

Live trees, local shops and restaurants, a mezzanine to explore – the new PDX is here! And there’s still more to come…

In order to bring you the new PDX designs as soon as possible, we divided our work on the main terminal into two phases. For Phase 2, we’re working on remodeling the terminal’s north and south ends (where the security checkpoints used to be) to match the rest of the look and feel. When we tear down those construction walls in 2026, you can say farewell to the detour walkways between the terminal and the concourses. You’ll also say hello to 10 more local restaurants and shops, permanent exit lanes and more escalators and elevators down to the arrivals level, shorter walks to and from your airline’s gate, and new airline VIP lounges.

All this work is setting the stage for more improvements at PDX, like Alaska Airlines’ continued investment to offer new nonstop service, updating our Parking and Revenue Control System, and creating more opportunities for local businesses to succeed at PDX.

4. Stabilize and grow container service at Terminal 6

Over the last year, everyone’s been talking about Terminal 6, Oregon’s only international container terminal – a critical resource for businesses in every part of the state that imports and exports products ranging from seafood and animal feed to building supplies.

We’re making major progress to stabilize and grow container service, including taking steps to secure funding that’s vital to these operations. Governor Tina Kotek approved a $2.5 million Strategic Reserve Fund allocation and is recommending $20 million capital and $15 million dredging investments in her budget. We also negotiated a Letter of Intent with Harbor Industrial to eventually operate the terminal, and pursued business development opportunities with a trade mission and meetings with shipping lines.

Now we’re focused on securing that $35 million in the Governor’s budget, completing due diligence and agreements with Harbor Industrial to approve the lease and transfer the operations, and working toward restarting rail service at the terminal.

5. Move with purpose at Port properties

A broad overview of what’s happening at Port properties simply won’t cut it – to fully understand the impressive scope of change, we have to look at them individually.

At the Mass Timber and Housing Innovation Campus at Terminal 2, we confirmed new tenants (HUB Group, Daimler, Zaugg Timber Solutions), conducted infrastructure and site-readiness planning, and signed a lease with the University of Oregon Acoustics Lab. Next, we’ll move ahead with plans for deep soil mixing and sign a long-term lease for a new, permanent mass timber modular factory, the centerpiece of the campus.

At Gresham Vista Business Park, Grainger plans to open its new distribution facility in spring 2025. The newly constructed building is about more than the products moving through – it’s about Grainger’s commitment to contribute to the economic vibrancy of East Multnomah County.

On Swan Island, we entered a lease with Face Plant, a local business opening their flagship fast-food drive-thru restaurant. Face Plant is seeking to offer delicious, affordable and convenient food that happens to be plant-based in hopes of reducing carbon emissions and shifting the trajectory of climate change. 

Finally, we’re laying out our East Multnomah County Strategy, convening local governments, academic institutions, community organizations and businesses to focus first on ways to create economic growth, then on crafting a road map of priority projects to get us there.

While a Top 5 for 2025 can’t possibly cover everything the Port of Portland will take on this year, we hope this gives you a sense of where our focus will be as we create growth for our region through travel, trade and economic development.