New Soo Lock in Great Lakes Gets $95M for Critical Construction Phase

The massive infrastructure effort to modernize the Great Lakes’ shipping corridor took a major step forward this month as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded $95 million to an Ohio-based contractor to carry out the third phase of work on the new Soo Lock at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.

The lock, which will serve as a critical link between Lake Superior and Lake Huron, is scheduled to open to commercial traffic by 2030. Designed to mirror the scale of the existing Poe Lock, the new structure will measure 1,200 feet long and 110 feet wide and is being constructed near the long-shuttered Sabin Lock.

This latest round of federal funding will be used to complete downstream components of the lock, including hands-free mooring systems and ship arrestors, according to a release from the Corps’ Detroit District.

“The contractor has completed nearly $600 million worth of work through the end of May 2025,” said Mollie Mahoney, senior project manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. “With the ongoing new concrete monoliths construction, the new lock walls are beginning to take shape on the downstream end of the project site.”

Progress and Scope

The Soo Lock expansion has been broken into three phases. The first focused on deepening the navigation channel. The second phase involved constructing approach walls upstream to guide vessels toward the new chamber.

Phase three, currently underway, is by far the most complex and expensive, with a projected cost exceeding $1 billion. Over the coming months, crews will focus on installing reinforced concrete lock walls, demolishing outdated infrastructure, and excavating bedrock to make way for the new structure.

The lock's construction site sits beside one of the busiest shipping lanes in North America. At present, nearly 88% of all bulk commodities that move through the Great Lakes system must pass through the Poe Lock. The Army Corps has emphasized that a failure at Poe would be catastrophic for U.S. industry.

National Significance

The importance of the project stretches far beyond Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. A 2015 study by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security projected that a six-month closure of the Poe Lock could slash the U.S. GDP by $1.1 trillion and result in the loss of 11 million jobs across multiple sectors.

Those findings were instrumental in generating political support for the project’s funding over the last decade. The potential risks associated with bottlenecks or breakdowns at the aging Poe Lock gave urgency to the modernization effort.

“With the ongoing new concrete monoliths construction, the new lock walls are beginning to take shape on the downstream end of the project site,” Mahoney reiterated, highlighting the visible progress at the water’s edge.

Looking Ahead

Though several locks currently operate along the St. Mary’s River, only the Poe Lock can accommodate the largest freighters, known as “lakers,” which haul raw materials like iron ore, coal, and limestone essential to steelmaking, energy production, and manufacturing.

Once complete, the new Soo Lock will provide redundancy and resilience in the shipping system, ensuring continuity for industries throughout the Midwest and across the country.

This federal investment marks a significant milestone in one of the most important infrastructure projects in the Great Lakes region—and one that underscores how a single point of failure in a regional waterway can have national consequences.

Originally reported by Jack Nissen in Fox 2 Detroit.