The Plaquemines Port Harbor and Terminal District closed Dec. 13 on the purchase of 550 acres of land just south of Myrtle Grove for future major development.

The property includes 1.5 miles of land along the Mississippi River in a location where industrial expansions are already in progress.

Port officials described the purchase and the port’s development as the “next economic engine” for Plaquemines Parish.

The port purchased the property from the Bank of Paris for $9.5 million, having negotiated down from an $11.5 million asking price. The land is the last remaining section of the 26-mile stretch known as Citrus Lands that the Bank of Paris owned.

What was once a collection of plantations in the center of Plaquemines Parish brought together through financial hardship after a great flood, Citrus Lands eventually fell into the hands of Gruppo Ferruzzi, an Italian farming conglomerate that raised cattle on the property for many years. When the Ferruzzi family fell on hard times, the property defaulted to the ownership of Banque Parabas or the Bank of Paris.

Such a vast track, with 26 miles of river frontage, always seemed like an opportune location for large-scale port development and was once considered the site of the Millennium Port, envisioned to be a large-scale container port operated by the State of Louisiana.