The Panama Canal is about to mark a century in use. A canal expansion project promises to bring in even larger ships. Commerce will be impacted at Florida's ports.

John Walsh, the CEO of Port Canaveral, said the port will benefit, but that's not stopping him from aiming elsewhere to expand cargo operations.

"We are at the advantage of having the 3-mile channel, add deep water in there, add that land in Brevard County, which is much less expensive than in Tampa because it hasn't developed as fast," Walsh said.

Walsh touts the pluses of Port Canaveral as opposed to other ports in Florida.

Right now, Walsh said, it's about a 45-minute trip from the shipping channel to docks for ships coming in — this compared to four hours for the ships to get from the Gulf of Mexico to the Port of Tampa. This also drastically reduces fuel costs, Walsh said. 

Tampa expects to benefit from the expansion of the Panama Canal.

Port Canaveral is also gearing up to get a piece of the cargo business, which would go hand-in-hand with its status as the second busiest cruise ship port in the world.

But officials believe the East Central Florida location, reaching 61 million people who live within six hours of the port, is ideal to draw in the European market and east coast of the United States without needed to use the Panama Canal.

A $41 million deepening project will allow larger container ships to come through. They want to grab a piece of the estimated $168 billion Florida trade and logistics business.

"A 10 percent market share of that $168 billion, which we think is very achievable, is a $16 billion income stream to the Space Coast," Walsh said.

The result is expected to be 5,000 jobs to the local economy over the next five years, eventually growing to 15,000 jobs.

A big part is the new GT USA cargo terminal, which is a $100 million investment geared to create 2,000 direct and indirect jobs when up and running at the end of 2014.

But is all of this investment worth it? Walsh said studies show that for every dollar they spend on port projects like deepening the channel, they get a $2.10 return.

And the impact to Central Florida as a whole is a 13-to-1 return.

The Port Canaveral deepening project should be completed by November.