Image courtesy of Anduril Industries.
Anduril Industries’ decision to build a $3.7 billion shipyard at Tradepoint Atlantic will add a huge, new industry to Central Maryland’s economy, creating thousands of jobs and driving new demand for housing and commercial properties.
“This is the single largest economic investment in Baltimore County’s history and one of the largest in state history,” said Jonathan Sacks, Director of the Department of Economic and Workforce Development in Baltimore County.
Anduril plans to build Arsenal-2 — a software-defined shipyard to manufacture complex components and large-scale assemblies for Virginia-class submarines. The operation is projected to support 3,100 direct, permanent jobs onsite and roughly 11,000 indirect jobs. Anduril projects that Arsenal-2 will generate $2 billion in economic activity and $312 million in wages annually.
Image courtesy of Anduril Industries.
“There is going to be a variety of real estate opportunities to support this new industry,” Sacks said. “We will need housing for workers, new retail and entertainment amenities, and both warehousing and corporate space for the vendors and business partners that will be part of this transformational investment.”
Those opportunities could start taking shape soon.
“Anduril is very serious about moving quickly,” Sacks said. “Their goal is to have a shovel in the ground by the end of 2026” to begin construction of a 2 million-square-foot facility.
Anduril projects that Arsenal-2 will begin initial operations in 2030, with production gradually increasing as the company builds its workforce, supplier base, infrastructure and and manufacturing capacity required for submarine production.
“The nature of any big business is that they do business with a lot of small businesses,” Sacks said. “A $2 billion a year industry will support a lot of acquisitions of raw materials and services, and a variety of components from vendors who may locate in the county to be close to their customer.”
Image courtesy of Anduril Industries.
Sacks and other economic development experts, however, agree the economic impact of Arsenal-2 will spread throughout Central Maryland.
“This project is emblematic of where the economy is going,” said Harford County Executive Bob Cassilly. “It’s on the site of a former steel plant where, in the old days, industry was all about big, strong guys tipping huge gantries of molten steel. That’s being replaced by modern, high-tech jobs and that’s what we have been preparing for.”
Harford County, Cassilly said, is already home to multiple high-tech manufacturers and is already acquainted with Anduril Industries, which is embedded at Aberdeen Proving Ground. That industrial base combined with the county’s efforts to provide high-tech and trades training at both high school and college levels positions Harford County to be part of the Anduril development.
“High-tech manufacturing has a lot of components, and they are not going to produce all of those components onsite,” he said. “We have a lot of manufacturers here who are already doing some pretty high-tech components for the Department of Defense. They will have an opportunity to compete for these additional lines.”
Defense contractors and distribution companies in Anne Arundel County will also likely be poised to pursue additional business with Anduril, said Wes MacQuilliam, Chief Operating Officer of Anne Arundel County Economic Development Corporation.
In addition, workforce growth created by Arsenal-2 “will almost certainly give homebuilders confidence to build new product because there will be higher demand in the future,” MacQuilliam said.
Featured in this article: Anduril Industries, Anne Arundel County Economic Development Corporation, Baltimore County, Harford County, Tradepoint Atlantic.