Bloggers, I’ll have more today, if I can get someone from Electric Boat to connect with me at (360) 475-3783. Rachel Pritchett
By Rachel Pritchett
rpritchett@kitsapsun.com
BREMERTON
NATIONAL AIRPORT
General Dynamics Electric Boat is the newest tenant in the Port of
Bremerton’s industrial park.
Port commissioners signed the lease Tuesday evening.
The debut of a major Navy contractor at the port prompted
commissioners, who once talked about diversifying Kitsap’s
employment base away from the military, to begin talking about
creating a defense campus at the port’s Olympic View Industrial
Park.
“I just think it’s a great opportunity for us to look forward to
more business with military contractors at our airport,”
Commissioner Bill Mahan said. The industrial park is directly
across Highway 3 from the port’s Bremerton National Airport.
Said Commissioner Cheryl Kincer, “I’ve been promoting a defense
campus out at our port for quite some time.”
The company will occupy roughly 9,000 square feet of space in a
building constructed by the port with no committed lease agreement,
and which stood empty for a year and a half in the recession.
That’s about a third of the available space in the building.
The port was under tremendous public pressure to get a tenant for
the building, and the relief was evident Tuesday.
“We are so pleased to have a firm of this stature join us at the
Port of Bremerton,” port Chief Executive Officer Cary Bozeman
said.
The Groton, Conn.-based company could be in its new digs by New
Year’s.
It will pay $7,648 in monthly rent to the port. Safe Boats
International remains the industrial park’s biggest tenant.
The lease could be as long as for eight years, if all the options
are taken.
The port paid a 4 percent commission to a Boston commercial real
estate company to arrange the deal, which was still being worked on
just a few hours before Tuesday evening’s meeting.
Bids were hurriedly received by the port to make the new quarters
ready for Electric Boat. Drury Construction of Poulsbo was the low
bidder, saying it could do the work for about $93,000.
Uses will include office functions, warehouse storage, research and
development, assembly, welding, painting and materials fabrication,
according to port documents.
Bozeman seemed confident that the arrival of Electric Boat at the
port would create more jobs. “It’ll definitely bring new,
good-paying jobs.”
But the two high-ranking Electric Boat managers at Tuesday’s port
meeting refused comment when asked if the move to the port comes at
the expense of the company’s operations within Puget Sound Naval
Shipyard, is an addition to its present local operations, or is a
consolidation of other Electric Boat operations in Puget Sound.
A company spokesman in Groton is expected to give more details
today.
Electric Boat has had a presence in Kitsap County dating back to
the 1980s, when its teams at the Bangor submarine base worked on
the Ohio-class subs.
Since 2003, Electric Boat has had a permanent presence at Puget
Sound Naval Shipyard, where its employees work on conversions of
the Trident subs.
Almost all of the work done by the company involves submarines. Its
primary operations are the shipyard in Groton and a submarine hull
fabrication and outfitting facility in Quonset Point, R.I.
It employs about 10,700 people. The vast majority of Electric
Boat’s work is in the United States, but it has done some work in
the United Kingdom and in Australia, according to a spokesman.
The company was founded in 1899 to do work on an experimental
sub.
