More elbow room at Hampton Roads: new APM terminal will ease capacity crunch at public terminals.(APM Terminals North America container terminal)

APM Terminals North America's planned 300-acre container terminal at Portsmouth, Va., offers long-term relief for capacity constraints at the Virginia Port Authority's terminals at Hampton Roads.

The opening of the private APM terminal, scheduled for the second half of 2007, will enable the port authority to use the 71-acre terminal that now serves ships of Maersk Sealand, which like APM is owned by A.P. Moller Group.

That will provide the port authority with breathing room as it seeks to develop a $1.2 billion terminal at Craney Island on a site the Army Corps of Engineers now uses as a disposal site for dredged material. Plans call for that terminal to be …