SpaceX wants a 50-year lease at the Port of Brownsville​. Here’s what we know

SpaceX is negotiating with the Port of Brownsville to lease 83 acres for the next 50 years, where it expects to build a dock on the south side of the Brownsville Ship Channel. 

While SpaceX is already building a massive rocket manufacturing facility known as Gigabay at Starbase nearby, it’s also constructing a significantly larger manufacturing operation on Florida’s Space Coast just north of Cape Canaveral, Florida. 

SpaceX plans to manufacture rockets in Texas, then ship them to Florida for launching, according to a recent environmental assessment by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. 

“Most manufacturing would occur at the SpaceX facility in Boca Chica, Texas. Starship or Super Heavy components would be delivered over roadways on a mobile transporter like the transports performed for Falcon. Large vehicle components would be transported by barge from the Port of Brownsville, Texas, utilizing the Kennedy Space Center turn basin to the vehicle assembly building location, then via crawlerway to LC-39A [the space center launchpad site],” according to its FAA documentation. 

SpaceX expects to ship the completed Starship rockets horizontally using a Marmac 31 barge, more than 1,000 miles from the Port of Brownsville to Florida “until the Roberts Road Starfactory is operational.”

For the Port of Brownsville, the lease could yield $32.8 million over a 50-year period. The lease requires a $164,381 security deposit and annual payments of $657,526 — about $7,900 per acre.

The port declined further comment, citing nondisclosure agreements during negotiations. 

“The purpose of the lease is to construct a dock to support SpaceX operations,” Port of Brownsville CEO William Dietrich said during a recent board meeting. “A portion of it will be a heavy-duty dock, but the rest will be for assembly line operations for space cargo that comes up that they’ll be able to do some work there on site.” 

For now, there is a roadway to the site, but it would likely need improvements, such as paving, port officials said. 

There’s a second, much smaller, lease approved for SpaceX to purchase a fish camp that sits on a 50-foot by 50-foot tract for 10 years. Port officials told the board the fish camp would be used by employees, primarily on the weekends.