The Parish has zoning designed to accommodate the needs of new and expanding businesses. Industrial properties on the water front and other sites are available in the Amelia/Morgan City Industrial Complex, central parish (Berwick/Patterson and Centerville) areas and the west end with St. Mary Industrial Park and the Port of West St. Mary. There are incentives available for facility construction including Port Priority Grants/Leases, Go Zone Bonds and/or Accelerated Depreciation and Industrial Revenue Bonds.

Click here to visit the Port of Morgan City's website.


     The Port of Morgan City has been an avenue of both domestic and international trade since 1957, with convenient direct access to ocean going traffic across the globe. Located just 29 miles from the Gulf of Mexico, with an unrestricted channel, 20 feet deep and 400 feet wide, the port is the cost effective focal point to reach major markets in the U.S. and Latin America. Inland barge traffic reaches 37 states to the north and Florida and Texas. The port offers the most direct routes to Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.

     Its docking and cargo handling facilities serve a wide variety of medium draft vessels. The port has an 800 foot dock to accommodate large vessels and a 20,000 sq. ft. warehouse with full security. The warehouse is approved for handling Titles II and III food commodities (PL 480). There is a large storage area and marshalling yard for shipping containers and a Burlington Northern

Santa Fe rail spur on site to give ready access to the Continental United States. The port is less than one mile to the future I-49 corridor, presently U.S. Hwy. 90. The port offers a 50 ton capacity mobile track crane with 20 foot and 40 foot spreaders. The port's 40 ton top lift container stacker is capable to triple stack containers. In addition, there are over 200 private dock facilities located in the Morgan City vicinity. These facilities enhance port capabilities offering heavy lift, barge mounted cranes to 5,000 tons, track cranes to 300 tons and mobile cranes to 150 tones.

The port is operated by The Shaw Group, a multi-national Fortune 500 Company headquartered in Louisiana.

Click here to visit the Port of St. Mary's website.


     The Port of West St. Mary is a public port located on the Gulf Coast of Louisiana. It operates at mile marker 133 on the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway in St. Mary Parish. The City of Franklin, the official seat of government for St. Mary Parish, is located 18 miles from the port. The port complex is located on LA Hwy. 83, approximately 15 miles south of U.S. Highway 90 (Future I-49) which connects to I-10.

The port complex or service area, includes approximately 1,500 acres of land of which the port owns 575 acres. Approximately 400 acres of port-owned property are considered developable. It is owned, operated and managed by the West St. Mary Parish Port, Harbor and Terminal District.

     The port provides excellent multi-modal transfer facilities for industrial, commercial and manufacturing sites. It includes 6,700 feet of rail with three spurs, a public loading and unloading dock with rail access and 1,350 feet of concrete surfaced, bulk headed property along the channel that connects the port to the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GIWW). The channel has a depth of 12 feet and has a bottom width of 150 feet. Its inter-modal infrastructure and configuration allow port cargo handling capabilities as well as the capability to serve as an industrial complex with water

, rail and highway frontage.

     Access to mainline railroads is also a key feature of the Port of West St. Mary. The Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railroad track generally follows the U.S. 90 corridor. The Louisiana Delta Railroad links with the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe at Baldwin following the state highway corridor to the port. The Louisiana Delta Railroad connection has served the port and nearby Degussa carbon black facility for decades.

     All utilities are available at the site including electricity , natural gas, water and sewerage. The Port of West St. Mary will construct a building to the customer's specifications that can be amortized in the form of a lease. There is no lease on the property itself and Economic Development Incentives will exempt ad-valorem tax es, generous benefits to companies with its Quality Jobs Program and worker training.