The Massport Marine Terminal. Image courtesy of Google Maps.

Local officials welcomed Boston Sword and Tuna to their its headquarters on the South Boston waterfront.

Developers broke ground on Thursday for the 50,000-square-foot seafood processing plant, a $20 million project on the Massport Marine Terminal. The project is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2019, and will include a test kitchen, 10 loading bays, a gym for employees, office space and a catwalk for tours of the facility.

Plans for the facility are environmentally friendly, according to developers Pilot Development Partners Inc., as the building will meet Massport’s floodproofing guidelines and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certifiability standards. The company is also keeping climate change in mind and plans to build the headquarters four feet higher than usual to keep in line with predictions for sea levels and flood levels in 2070.

BST currently is a tenant at the Harbor Seafood Center on Seafood Way.

“Having our own building in South Boston will have a big impact on how we do business,” BST President Michael Scola said. “The bigger space will enable us to meet internationally recognized quality standards that will allow us to grow and better serve our customers globally.”

Pilot has also proposed to build on another section of the same parcel, with plans for a mixed-use garage for maritime industrial uses, a meeting hall for the International Longshoremen’s Association and a seafood/sandwich shop to be operated by BST.

Boston Mayor Martin Walsh and Rep. Stephen Lynch attended the groundbreaking.