Hi everyone. As of the taping of this podcast, late Wednesday afternoon on June 10, we have one new case of COVID-19 at EB. The individual works at Quonset Point in Department 914, in the Columbia AFC building. This individual’s last day of work was June 8 and they were tested today on June 10. So this marks the first case in almost two weeks, indicating a pretty dramatic reduction in the case rate here at Electric Boat.
Today I’m joined by Joe Drake, EB’s Vice President in charge of our Facilities Master Plan or “FMP.” This week we’re announcing that EB has signed a contract for $544 million dollars with the company AECOM to complete construction of the South Yard Assembly Building here in Groton. This building, along with other work already underway, is the largest facility expansion at Groton in 50 years. We’re also investing significantly in our new facilities at Quonset Point.
This is important, and I want you to know about it because it demonstrates a level of commitment by General Dynamics and the Navy to sustain EB as the world’s premier submarine builder, something we can all be proud of and obviously need to live up to.
I thought it would be helpful if we could spend a few minutes today talking to Joe for a high-level overview of the facilities we’re working on to get ready for the Columbia program.
Joe, you’re new to EB but you’re not new to General Dynamics. Tell us a little bit about your background.
JD: Thanks for having me Kevin. I have been a commercial Real Estate Development professional for over 35 years. From 1984-2006, I led development teams on the design and construction of over 5.5 million square feet of office, industrial, educational and religious facilities plus nearly 5 million square feet of interior improvements, primarily in the Washington DC metro area.
In 2007, I joined Gulfstream, a General Dynamics company, as Director of Real Estate responsible for their Facilities Master Plan I. In 2013, I was promoted to Vice President for Real Estate and Facilities. While at Gulfstream, our organization was responsible for the design, renovation and construction of over 4 million square feet of new manufacturing, service center, office and R&D facilities, primarily in Savannah, but also around the US, Mexico and in the UK. We were also responsible for maintaining and lease administration for over 6 million square feet of facilities, including ground support equipment and automated manufacturing tools, maintenance and service.
In 2017, I was asked to assist in the design and construction of General Dynamic’s new headquarters in Reston, VA. The project was completed last year on schedule and under budget.
Thanks Joe. So when I learned we had an opportunity to get your expertise here, of course, I jumped on it. I’m glad to have you on the team. Let’s talk about the new buildings. These are pretty exciting— we’ve brought some new buildings online at Quonset Point. Let’s talk a little bit about those buildings and give us a sense for how much space we’re talking about and why we’re doing it.
JD: We have an exciting month this month. We have a couple of large buildings coming online at QP. The first building, 9B, is to be delivered around June 30th. It will complete the 9A/9B complex, about 350,000 square feet of new manufacturing space that represents about 8 acres—that’s a pretty massive area of land that we’re covering. It will take care of our assembly and outfitting for the Virginia and Columbia programs.
Also, at the same time we will be delivering our Coating facility. That facility will be augmenting our existing facilities to provide the additional throughput that’s required as we go forward with the construction of the Columbia submarine. In addition to that, we’ve just started the AFC II, Automated Frame and Cylinder facility—that started this March. It’s running about two weeks ahead of schedule, and we anticipate delivery of that facility in May of next year. Concurrently, we’re also designing a new heavy lift and pier facility to support the transfer of the modules from Quonset Point to Groton on the Holland, our new ocean transport barge that will be delivered next August.
Thanks Joe. There’s quite a bit going on there; every time I go to Quonset, when you head down the road and look at what’s on the horizon, you can’t help but be amazed at the size of the buildings. What that indicates is just how much space we’re going to need as the work increases. So an awful lot of work is going on and all of it progressing to our plan right now. Let’s take a minute and shift to Groton. We broke ground on the South Yard Assembly Building this past September. Let’s talk a little bit about that at a high level, talk about major milestones, why this project is so challenging, when we can expect our folks to start moving into the new building and when we’ll start work on Columbia.
JD: This is a unique project and it’s a great project. Most people in my profession would jump at this type of project. It’s one of the reasons why I’m here at EB. It’s highly complex because we’re building a building primarily over water; 75% of the foundations go below the waves—significantly deep. That requires us to do some major engineering and design work along with the construction work. It’s been a little bit of a tough slog, but we’re getting through it really well. We’ve got about 50% of the drill piers already in place. These piers will support the deck of the building and then the building itself. Installation of pre-cast beams and decking will commence in early August, and we expect the entire deck to be complete in the first quarter of 2021. Erection of the steel, which is what everybody will probably be looking for because right now everything is going under water, and the steel comes above, we’ll start late in March and will be completed by the end of 2021. We’ll be weather-tight in early 2022. We anticipate the building will be completed in January of 2023 with first use anticipated in June of the same year. So the South Yard Assembly Building is where we are going to build Columbia. We anticipate modules will start being delivered in June of 2023 and the submarine will be delivered in 2024.
Actually, 2027 before we deliver, but a lot of work going on in the building starting right away as soon as the building is done in 2023/24. You and I have spent some time walking that facility and watching it come together. It amazes me to see some of the technology brought to bear in drilling into the rock that is below the Thames River and making that thing stand up for what will be at least 100 years of submarine construction. So it’s very exciting to watch that thing come together and I’ve learned a lot about Civil Engineering that I frankly never knew before.
I want to say thanks to you for your description. We’ll include a recent great drone shot (pictured above) to give folks a sense for just how big the foundation for that building is going to be.
So Joe, I want to say thanks. It’s great to have you on this team; I mean that sincerely. Our facilities are coming together; we’re performing very well from a performance-to-budget and schedule perspective. I’d like to thank you and your team for the work they’ve done in helping keep our neighbors informed and keep everyone involved with these projects safe.
Thank you Kevin for the opportunity to work with you and Electric Boat.
Until next time, signing off, we’ll talk with you soon. Thank you.
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