Port Canaveral hears pitch for small‑scale LNG plant on 50‑acre Barge Canal parcel

At an afternoon workshop, Port Canaveral Authority staff and outside developers laid out an unsolicited proposal to buy or lease roughly 50 acres along the Barge Canal for a small‑scale liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility, then answered commissioners' questions about valuation, permitting and community impacts.

The presentation, led by the port's general counsel and Real Estate Director Mark Milositz and followed by proponents from Berkshire Hathaway Energy and consultant Alan Shepherd of HDR, focused on whether the parcel is strategically valuable to the port and whether an LNG use would serve port customers. Mark Milositz said a recent appraisal placed the site's value at $11.4 million (about $238,000 per acre) after subtracting roughly $7.7 million to account for mitigation of about 23 acres of wetlands.

Brevard County's planning director, Billy Prasad, told the board that if title were transferred away from the port the proposal would face substantial local and state review. "Brevard County shall not permit heavy industrial development along the Barge Canal," he said, identifying that policy in the county's comprehensive plan (transportation element policy 5.4) as a threshold barrier: a privately initiated text amendment, a small‑scale comprehensive plan amendment, rezoning to heavy industrial and a conditional…