A 55-ton shipment carrying the sail, dive planes and rudder of the decommissioned USS Jacksonville submarine is set to arrive in Jacksonville by late August or early September, marking a major step in a four-year push to give the city's namesake fast-attack submarine a permanent home on the downtown riverfront. The pieces are headed for storage at a shipyard east of EverBank Stadium before eventual display at Shipyards West Park, near the floating USS Orleck naval museum.
The effort is being led by Bring the Sail 2 Jax, a Jacksonville-based nonprofit that has spent roughly four years pursuing the project, according to the Jacksonville Daily Record. Stephen Jorgensen, a civilian engineer who helped design Seawolf-class submarines and once served as an electrician's mate first class aboard the USS Jacksonville, approached the Navy about creating an educational memorial roughly a year ago and now spearheads the relocation through the nonprofit. Jorgensen served in the Navy for six years, and he told the Daily Record the reassembled components are expected to be moved to Shipyards West within about a year.
The USS Jacksonville, a Los Angeles-class fast-attack submarine, was commissioned in 1981 and inactivated in 2017 before being formally decommissioned in 2021 at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington. It holds the distinction of being the only U.S. Navy vessel ever named after Jacksonville, and with no future ship currently slated to carry the name, City Council member Will Lahnen, a former submarine officer who helped the nonprofit secure Navy and city permission for the relocation, called it meaningful local history. Lahnen said the submarine played a key role in Navy operations, especially during the Cold War.
Cross-Country Trip for a 55-Ton Load
Landstar System Inc. will pick up the shipment at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and transport it cross-country to Jacksonville, per Jorgensen. The load includes the USS Jacksonville's sail, its dive planes — which span about 26 feet from tip to tip — and a rudder pulled from another submarine of the same class, since the original vessel's rudder was not part of what the Navy released. The sail itself measures roughly 15 feet high and 8 feet long.
Once it arrives, the shipment will be stored at Fincantieri Marine Repair's shipyard along the St. Johns River, east of EverBank Stadium, while planning continues for its final display. Fincantieri has partnered with Bring the Sail 2 Jax on the project, and local welders experienced with the submarine's specialized steel alloy will handle assembling the pieces once a permanent site is finalized. Daniel Bean and Jim Webb have also assisted the memorial effort, according to the Daily Record's reporting.
A Spot Beside the USS Orleck
Supporters are in discussions with the Downtown Investment Authority and city parks officials about placing the sail on display at Shipyards West Park, next to the USS Orleck, a 390-foot Gearing-class destroyer that arrived in Jacksonville in March 2022 and opened at its permanent berth as the centerpiece of the Jacksonville Naval Museum in May 2023, as previously reported by Jacksonville Today. The Orleck is docked at the west edge of the 10-acre park, which sits along Bay Street on the Downtown Northbank. City officials, including Harrison Conyers, director of the city's Military Affairs and Veterans Department, are part of the ongoing site conversations.
City officials have said no municipal funding is being used for the memorial project itself, even as it takes shape within a park that carries a much larger public price tag. The city's Capital Improvement Plan estimates the total cost of Shipyards West Park at $74.7 million, and a permit reviewed in July covers a $57 million, 36,000-square-foot multipurpose events pavilion planned for the site. Hoodline previously reported on the broader riverfront push, noting that funding for the park comes in part from allocations tied to the city's stadium community-benefits agreement.
Decades of False Starts
The submarine memorial follows a long, frustrating history of local efforts to secure a Navy warship for public display in Jacksonville. A 1995 campaign to bring the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga to the city fell through, and in 2018 the Navy rejected a bid to donate the destroyer USS Charles F. Adams, according to Jacksonville Today. The nonprofit that originally pursued the Charles F. Adams eventually pivoted to securing the USS Orleck instead, giving the city its first permanent floating naval museum.
Organizers now plan to reassemble the sail, dive planes and rudder on the pier alongside the Orleck, repainting the pier surface cobalt blue to create the visual illusion of a submarine navigating underwater, per Jacksonville Today's reporting. The Navy's Ship-Submarine Recycling Program, run out of Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, defuels and recycles all decommissioned nuclear submarines, sealing reactor compartments for disposal at Washington's Hanford Site — a process that explains why only non-nuclear exterior components like the sail and dive planes can be released to a civilian nonprofit at all.
Organizers describe the finished memorial as a planned tourism draw for Navy veterans, military enthusiasts and families, with the broader aim of boosting downtown activity as the riverfront park buildout continues. During its 36 years of active service, the USS Jacksonville completed 15 deployments, including two around-the-world cruises and intelligence operations following the September 11 attacks — service history that Bring the Sail 2 Jax hopes will anchor the new exhibit once it finds its permanent place beside the Orleck.
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