General Dynamics Electric Boat broke ground on a new 200,000-square-foot facility on Sept. 13 that will be dedicated to building the new Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine.
Called the South Yard Assembly Building (SYAB), it will be on 7 acres of the company’s property at its Groton, Conn., facility and is the largest company construction project in 45 years, GD Electric Boat President Jeffrey Geiger said.
“The facility we break ground on today will enable Electric Boat to deliver the U.S. Navy’s number-one acquisition priority—the Columbia class—our nation’s next-generation fleet of ballistic missile submarines,” Geiger said in a statement.
The company also plans to build a floating dock to launch Columbia vessels as well as expand and update other manufacturing spaces.
Geiger is scheduled to retire on Sept. 30 after 35 years with General Dynamics. He will be succeeded as president of General Dynamics Electric Boat by Kevin Graney, president of GD National Steel and Shipbuilding Co.
General Dynamics Electric Boat is contracted to build 12 Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines, which will replace the Navy’s existing fleet of 14 Ohio-class boats. The new vessels are scheduled to serve into the 2080s. They will be loaded with Trident II-D5 missiles tipped with W76 or W88 nuclear warheads built by the Department of Energy’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration.
