Austal USA Celebrates Ribbon Cutting on 3 New Facilities

On Friday, July 06, 2012, Austal USA held a ribbon cutting ceremony at its Mobile, Ala. location to celebrate the official opening of three new facilities which include: Phase Two of the Module Manufacturing Facility (MMF), an Office Complex and Assembly Bay 5.

Gray provided architecture; engineering; programming; construction management; and equipment installation to Austal’s Phase Two MMF and the new office complex. Gray first worked with Austal USA in 2009 on Phase One of Austal’s MMF. This facility is used to produce the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) and the Joint High Speed Vessel (JHSV) for the U.S. Navy.

The completed MMF project includes 740,000 sq. ft. (17 acres) of manufacturing space, 85,000 sq. ft. of drive-through warehouse space for receipt and distribution of materials from suppliers, and 60,000 sq. ft. of office space. The MMF expansion can accommodate a total workforce of up to 1,200 personnel in the new buildings. The completion of MMF Phase 2 now makes the MMF big enough to fit all the football playing fields of the SEC, including end zones, inside. It is a mirror image of Phase 1 of the shipyard but with additional cranes for increased lifting capacity and static construction space for longer construction duration items not conforming to standard assembly line times. The state-of-the-art facility is capable of constructing six large aluminum vessels such as the Navy’s LCS and/or JHSV per year.

The new three-story Office Complex encompasses over 110,000 sq. ft. of office space and includes a reconfigurable Multi-Use Room capable of seating 400 people auditorium-style. It will house 450 employees and is 5 times the size of the existing two-story office building. This new office building will allow Austal to co-locate engineers, project and program offices, purchasing, contracts and legal, finance, business integration, and sales and marketing who are currently spread all over Mobile in separate buildings and trailers.

The ribbon cutting was led by Austal USA’s Interim President and CFO, Brian Leathers. Other event participants included: U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R. Ala.), Austal USA Senior VP of Operations Craig Perciavalle, Austal USA VP of Sales, Marketing and External Affairs Craig Hooper, Mobile County Commission President Connie Hudson, Mobile City Council President Reggie Copeland, Gray Construction CEO Stephen Gray and Thompson Engineering Chairman Henry R. Seawell, III.

Gray, ranked 3rd among the U.S. Top Green Contractors in Manufacturing Plants Construction, currently has several large projects, mostly located across the South, that are underway or recently completed including: eight projects for Volkswagen on their Chattanooga, Tenn. campus; a Caterpillar, Inc. manufacturing facility in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; a Caterpillar, Inc. manufacturing facility near Athens, Ga.; a Siemens gas turbine plant in Charlotte, North Carolina; a Michelin Earthmover tire manufacturing plant in Starr, S.C.;  and a Whirlpool plant in Cleveland, Tenn. If you have manufacturing plant construction needs, please contact Phil Seale, Senior Vice President, Manufacturing Market at pseale@gray.com.