After seven years of planning and research, plans are officially underway to build a multi-use, offshore mega-port in the Gulf of Mexico just three miles off the coast of Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana.

Expected to open in the third quarter of 2016, the mega-port will handle dry bulk, liquid bulk, petroleum, container, and LNG cargoes and be able to accommodate some of the biggest cargo ships in the world, according to the Louisiana International Deepwater Gulf Transfer Terminal Authority (LIGTT).

Applications have been filed with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Coast Guard for permits to build the dry-bulk transfer terminal, the first of the port’s multiple-use “verticals.”

The LIGTT, the Private-Public Partnership (P3) overseeing the port’s construction and management, said the transfer terminal will be strategically located on 2,250 acres on a 2,250 acre “island” in the Gulf of Mexico with strategic access to maritime highways and the Mississippi River.

Development “will have minimal environmental impact as this location does not require dredging and site modification to create the draft capability necessary for the anticipated increase in major vessel traffic in the Gulf of Mexico and East Coast of United States,” it said.