$1.7 billion expansion project approved for Portsmouth Naval Shipyard

COURTESY / PORTSMOUTH NAVAL SHIPYARD Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery will receive $1.7 billion to construct a multi-mission dry dock.

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By Staff

The federal government on Friday announced it will award a $1.7 billion contract to build out a submarine dry dock facility at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery.

The contract will complete the construction of the multi-mission extension project for Dry Dock No. 1, according to a news release.

Currently, the dock can only accommodate Navy Los Angeles-class submarines, which means it would become obsolete when they are removed from service in the 2030s.

Pittsfield-based construction contractor Cianbro Corp. is already at work on a $158 million project to modernize the existing dry dock. The company recently delivered one of the first major pieces of the job — a 5,000-ton concrete entrance structure for the dock's new "superflood basin," which acts as a sort of canal lock.

Details about the longer-term expansion or how it will be procured were not disclosed in the release. However, the new contract will call for a partitioned addition to Dry Dock No. 1 within the superflood basin area. The addition will consist of two bays, Dry Dock No. 1 North and Dry Dock No. 1 West, while the existing Dry Dock No. 1 will be renamed Dry Dock No. 1 East.

Both Dry Dock 1 North and Dry Dock No. 1 West will be large and deep enough to support the maintenance and overhaul of Virginia-class submarines, the release said.

New construction will include concrete floors, walls and center wall separating Dry Dock No. 1 North and Dry Dock No. 1 West; new pumpwell systems and a pump station building; two caissons; portal crane rails; mooring hardware; utilities and more. Work is expected to be complete by June 2028

The expansion will be incrementally funded with $70 million obligated at the time of a contract award. Following increments will be funded yearly from fiscal year 2022 through fiscal year 2027 in the amounts of $214 million, $390 million, $405 million, $300 million, $200 million and $152 million.

Failure to modernize the dry dock would result in 20 deferred submarine maintenance availabilities through 2040, meaning Navy submarines would not be able to accomplish their missions, said U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, in the news release.

“I have long advocated for modernization projects at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, the gold standard for public shipyards, to ensure the highly skilled employees are able to successfully carry out their essential missions,” said Collins, a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee and the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee.

“This contract is vital to our national security because it will allow PNSY to maintain our submarine fleet.”

Portsmouth Naval Shipyard generated a regional economic impact of $1.16 billion in 2019, according to a report last year. The shipyard, a sprawling, 300-acre complex on islands in the Piscataqua River, employed 7,310 civilians, more than half of whom were Maine residents.

The Kittery yard is the oldest — established in 1800 — of four operated throughout the country by the Navy.