Happy Tuesday.
The build this week: Mare Island opened in 1854 as the Navy's first shipyard on the West Coast. Submarines were built there for four decades before closing in 1996. It is now officially on the market.
Underneath: a $200 million Navy hypersonic order, Youngstown-made drones, and fresh capital for construction and critical-minerals companies.
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The Lead
The big picture: America has fewer than 40 dry docks to maintain an entire Navy and commercial fleet. The White House just directed the Pentagon to find land for a fifth public shipyard, the first in 80 years. One of the leading candidates isn't new land at all. It's 350 acres sitting quietly in Vallejo, California at the northernmost end of San Francisco Bay.
Driving the news: Mare Island opened in 1854 as the Navy's first shipyard on the West Coast. Submarines were built there for four decades before closing in 1996. It is now officially on the market. JLL announced last month it's advising owner The Nimitz Group on leasing or partnering out the site's four operational dry docks and two million square feet of maritime-ready buildings.
The pitch: Building a single new dry dock costs roughly $1 billion and takes five-plus years. Mare Island already has four. Its strength is the ecosystem it sits in. Mare Island, in Taylor’s telling, connects the dots: existing infrastructure, a Bay Area tech corridor next door, and a workforce pipeline California is already funding.
What's next: As JLL shops the deal, just 90 days are left on the clock for the Pentagon's shipyard plan to take shape. Whether Washington picks a legacy yard with a 172-year head start, or starts from scratch, is the billion-dollar-per-dry-dock question.
Defense & Space
Agilis Air raised $1.4 million and listed its $1,250 Remora drone on the Army's UAS Marketplace as it ramps production in Youngstown on a fully domestic supply chain.
Castelion received a Navy order valued at up to $200 million for initial Blackbeard hypersonic weapons built in California and New Mexico.
BlueHalo received a $99.8 million ceiling contract for orbital battlespace R&D in Huntsville and Albuquerque.
Olin Winchester won a $788.4 million five-year ammunition contract covering 5.56mm, 7.62mm and .50-caliber rounds.
Rolls-Royce Solutions America received a $39.1 million modification for Eitan power packs built in Graniteville, South Carolina.
Arbe introduced its field-tested Alerion counter-drone radar, a compact 4D imaging system now under evaluation by integrators.
Elveo Mobile and Apex formed a partnership for a dedicated U.S. spacecraft factory supporting Elveo's direct-to-device constellation.
TAT Technologies and Beyond Aero will develop thermal-management systems for a six-passenger hydrogen-electric aircraft targeting 800 nautical miles of range.
Aitech launched a rugged 6U VME single-board computer for upgrades to existing defense aircraft and ground systems.
Northrop Grumman received an $18.7 million production modification for B-2 hot trailing edges manufactured in Utah.
Maritime & Shipbuilding
The Delaware Container Terminal broke ground on a $669 million build designed for 1.2 million TEU of annual capacity on 137 acres in Edgemoor.
General Dynamics Mission Systems received an $11.5 million order to manufacture, test and deliver AEGIS fire-control antenna reflectors in Marion, Virginia.
Orion Government Services won $26.7 million for Phase II maintenance of the North Jetty at the Columbia River.
Ahtna Construction & Primary Products won a $9.7 million project to raise a dike and rehabilitate an outfall along the Houston Ship Channel.
Manson Construction received a $9.4 million maintenance-dredging award for the Brazos Island Harbor entrance and jetty channel at Port Isabel.
Manufacturing & Automation
Kennametal became NASCAR's official tooling supplier, placing application engineers at the racing organization's Concord, North Carolina R&D center.
Buildots raised $130 million to scale a construction-control platform already used by more than 100 large owners and contractors.
Peckham Vocational Industries received a five-year contract with a $10 million maximum to produce cold-weather drawers for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.
J & J Contractors won a $33 million contract to replace failing barracks at Devens, Massachusetts with a new 300-person facility.
Energy & Materials
Generation Mining secured a C$340 million final financing tranche inside a roughly C$1.3 billion package for its Marathon copper-palladium project in Ontario.
Trilogy Metals closed a $35.6 million War Department equity investment that gives the government an approximately 10% stake in the Alaska-focused developer.
Supply Chain & Freight
Questar combined its U.S. distribution business with seven Canadian hubs into one North American industrial-packaging network.
Dealbook
Blue Moon Metals, Elmet and EQ Resources set a $150 million to $175 million investment package for the Springer tungsten mine, mill and APT plant.
Buildots raised $130 million, bringing its total capital raised to $297 million.
Maven Robotics raised $100 million for general-purpose robot development.
Sophia Space and SLI set terms for a $300 million asset-financing framework covering a 10-satellite edge-compute constellation.
Generation Mining completed a roughly C$1.3 billion financing package for the Marathon copper-palladium project.
KPS Capital Partners agreed to sell Metra to Grupa Kety for EUR645 million, transferring a nine-site aluminum extrusion platform.
H.I.G. Capital formed EverRise Lift Group by combining Action Elevator and All City Elevator.
Macquarie Asset Management agreed to buy a majority stake in SI Solutions, a structural-integrity engineering and testing provider.
Excelsior Energy Capital sold the Faraday and Skyhawk solar plants to Enel for $760 million.
Trilogy Metals closed a $35.6 million strategic equity investment from the War Department.
Back Thursday.
