🔒Bath Iron Works breaks ground on parking garage for shipyard employees
General Dynamics Bath Iron Works has started construction on a parking garage that will provide 972 spaces for shipyard employees. RENDERING/ COURTESY OF BIW
The $60 million project also includes the expansion of surface parking lots as well as planned improvements to Washington Street designed to improve traffic flow and boost pedestrian safety.
General Dynamics Bath Iron Works has started construction on a parking garage that will provide 972 spaces for shipyard employees.
The project cost, which also includes the expansion of surface parking lots as well as planned improvements to Washington Street designed to improve traffic flow and boost pedestrian safety, totals $60 million, according to a spokesman. The manufacturer is staffed by 6,800 employees.
The surface lots are due to completed this summer, and the parking garage in 2028. Turner Construction Co., a New York-based company working with Maine crews, is the main contractor. Portland-based SMRT Architects & Engineers is also involved in the project.
Once completed, the facility will allow employees to park closer to the shipyard, which claims to be the state’s largest single-site employer. It is ranked as Maine’s fourth-largest private employer in the 2026 Mainebiz Book of Lists, behind MaineHealth, Hannaford and Walmart, each of which has multiple sites.
“This investment supports our goal of ensuring Bath remains a vibrant ‘City of Ships’ where shipbuilders can live, work and play,” said BIW President Charles Krugh.
“Supporting our shipbuilders and making it easier for people to become shipbuilders is important to the long-term strength of our company and our national defense,” he added. It is how we make Bath-built best built.”
BIW President Charles Krugh at Tuesday's groundbreaking. PHOTO / COURTESY OF BATH IRON WORKS
Krugh was joined at Tuesday’s groundbreaking by Bath City Council Chairman Roo Dunn and Navy Cdr. Michael Beautyman Jr., principal assistant program manager for DDG 51 production from the Shipbuilding Program Office.
The parking garage project will include creation of a publicly accessible plaza at the entrance to the BIW campus.
BIW said the garage is one of a series of investments in the Washington Street corridor aimed at improving traffic flow, safety and the employees’ experience as they arrive at and depart the shipyard, as well as improving the aesthetics of the area near BIW.
Seven Arleigh Burke-class destroyers are currently under construction at the shipyard, which traces its roots back to 1826.
