Saronic Technologies has topped out its $300 million expansion of the Franklin shipyard in St. Mary Parish, Louisiana, a 300,000 sq ft project being delivered by a JE Dunn Construction and Alberici Constructors joint venture. Construction began in November 2025 and is now expected to finish in early 2027, adding three slips and a dedicated production line for the 180 ft Marauder autonomous ship.
Crews installed the final structural beam during the week of August 24, 2026. The topping-out marks the end of the structural phase on one of the largest recent private investments in a Louisiana shipyard, at a site that was close to irrelevance just eighteen months earlier.
What the expansion actually adds
The development includes more than 300,000 sq ft of new production space, three additional slips, expanded warehouse capacity and a production line designed specifically for large-vessel assembly. Structural steel was supplied by Hillsdale Fabricators, an Alberici company, helping consolidate the fabrication chain within a single corporate group. KPFF is serving as the engineering partner, while JacobsWyper Architects and P2S complete a design team that has been involved since the December 2025 announcement.
The joint venture said early procurement of long-lead materials and self-performed work helped reduce time within the construction programme. Peak site employment reached around 200 craft professionals, engineers and project leaders. That is a relatively modest peak workforce for a $300 million project, reflecting the extent to which the investment is concentrated in marine works and equipment rather than enclosed building area.
The delivery model is worth watching for those following Gulf Coast industrial construction. JE Dunn’s project page describes a 12-month construction programme supported by Lean practices, prefabrication and work sequencing agreed before mobilisation. The same page states that the completed shipyard could increase United States shipbuilding capacity by roughly 12 per cent. Neither contractor has published the methodology behind that figure, so it is better viewed as a contractor estimate than a verified industry-wide calculation.
The schedule has moved, quietly
Announcements throughout the first half of 2026 placed construction completion at the end of 2026, with expanded operations expected to begin in early 2027. Alberici’s project page still identifies the end of 2026 as the critical deadline and notes that meeting it is important to Saronic’s deployment timeline. WorkBoat’s August 2026 report, however, places completion in early 2027.
That represents a movement of roughly one quarter on a 12-month programme, although the joint venture has continued to describe the schedule as accelerated rather than delayed. Both descriptions can hold some truth. A shipyard expansion moving from groundbreaking to structural completion in nine months is fast by any American measure, while the original end-2026 target was aggressive from the outset. The practical implication is that Saronic’s ambition of producing as many as 20 Marauders annually now depends on a facility that will not be fully commissioned until the year it is intended to reach that production rate.
The money, the incentives and the jobs
At $300 million for 300,000 sq ft, the headline investment works out to roughly $1,000 per square foot of covered space. That figure overstates the cost of the buildings themselves and understates the wider scope, since the budget also covers three slips, waterfront works near the Atchafalaya River, and a production line for vessels measuring 180 ft long and capable of carrying 40 tonne payloads.
The state’s contribution is relatively small compared with the private investment. Louisiana Economic Development offered a $2 million performance-based grant and $3 million through the Economic Development Award Program for facility and infrastructure improvements, alongside LED FastStart workforce support and anticipated participation in the Quality Jobs Program. That amounts to $5 million in direct state funding against a $300 million private commitment, a ratio that compares favourably with many large industrial incentive packages across the Gulf South.
LED projected the creation of 1,500 direct jobs at full employment, with an average annual salary of $87,936, which the agency said was 46 per cent above the average St. Mary Parish wage. The project is also expected to support an estimated 1,770 indirect jobs, bringing the regional total to 3,270. The starting point was just 35 employees inherited when Saronic acquired the Gulf Craft yard in April 2025, while headcount had exceeded 100 by the December 2025 announcement. Growing from that base to 1,500 workers in a parish of roughly 48,000 people remains one of the project’s largest execution challenges.
Capacity is being built ahead of orders
The Franklin production line is intended to build Marauder. Marauder, however, does not yet have a production contract. Saronic’s $392 million United States Navy award, announced in December 2025 under Other Transaction Authority, covers the 24 ft Corsair, which is manufactured in Austin rather than Louisiana. Navy Lookout reported in July 2026 that Marauder is one of seven designs competing in the Navy’s medium unmanned surface vessel marketplace, with at-sea demonstrations continuing through October 2026, a $15 million payment available for designs that pass and potential eligibility for follow-on work.
Saronic is financing that gap itself. The company closed a $1.75 billion Series D led by Kleiner Perkins on March 31, 2026, at a $9.25 billion valuation, up from a $4 billion valuation following a $600 million Series C in early 2025, and said the capital would support its Louisiana and Texas facilities. The first Marauder hull was laid down in August 2025 and launched in late May 2026. It has been based at the Port of Gulfport since mid-July for on-water testing and commissioning at a 30,000 sq ft site Saronic announced on August 9, 2026, while additional hulls remain under construction at Franklin.
Where Franklin sits in the American yard buildout
Franklin represents the lower-cost, faster-moving end of a construction wave that has become one of the busiest segments of United States industrial development. Saronic’s own $3 billion Port Alpha shipyard in Brownsville, Texas, unveiled in July 2026, spans 835 acres with room to expand to 4,400 acres and is projected to create up to 10,000 direct jobs over a decade. Franklin occupies 100 acres and has a target of 1,500 jobs. On capital investment per acre, the two projects are in entirely different categories, which reflects their different development models: Franklin is an expansion of an existing working shipyard already producing hulls, while Brownsville remains at the development stage.
The broader market also includes Hanwha’s $5 billion modernisation of Philly Shipyard and the Navy-backed Factory of the Future in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, all competing within the same constrained market for marine contractors and skilled labour. Public investment is moving alongside these projects on the port and terminal side, including the $100 million Oregon committed to the Pacific Coast Intermodal Port at Coos Bay. Whether the available labour pool can support all of this activity simultaneously remains an open question across the sector, and Franklin’s hiring trajectory over the next eighteen months will provide one of the clearest tests.
Project at a Glance
- Project Name: Saronic Franklin Shipyard Expansion
- Location: Franklin, St. Mary Parish, Louisiana, United States
- Project Value: $300 million (Saronic, December 2025)
- Client / Owner: Saronic Technologies, Inc.
- Main Contractor: JE Dunn Construction and Alberici Constructors joint venture
- Site Area: 100 acres, acquired from Gulf Craft in April 2025
- Key Components: 300,000+ sq ft of new production space, three new slips, expanded warehouse, dedicated production line for the 180 ft Marauder MUSV
- Funding Source: Private capital, supported by a $1.75 billion Series D closed March 31, 2026
- State Incentives: $2 million performance-based grant, $3 million Economic Development Award Program, LED FastStart (Louisiana Economic Development, December 2025)
- Construction Start: November 2025
- Structural Completion: August 2026 (topping out)
- Expected Completion: Early 2027 (WorkBoat, August 2026)
- Jobs: 1,500 direct at an average $87,936 per year, plus 1,770 indirect (LED estimate, December 2025)
- Peak Construction Workforce: Approximately 200
Project Team
- Client: Saronic Technologies, Inc.
- Main Contractor: JE Dunn Construction and Alberici Constructors joint venture
- Architect: JacobsWyper Architects
- Engineering Partner: KPFF Consulting Engineers
- MEP Engineer: P2S
- Structural Steel Fabricator: Hillsdale Fabricators (an Alberici company)
- Economic Development Partner: Louisiana Economic Development
- Vessel Testing and Commissioning Site: Port of Gulfport, Mississippi
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