President Donald Trump was expected to announce Tuesday that the former Bethlehem Steel site will become a 2-million-square-foot shipyard for Virginia-class attack submarines, a project backers say will support 14,000 jobs and anchor a new era of naval manufacturing in Baltimore County. The facility, named Arsenal-2, will be built by defense technology firm Anduril Industries and is expected to create 3,100 permanent jobs once fully running.
According to WBAL NewsRadio, the Sparrows Point site will build submarine components including torpedo tubes, sterns and bow sections, feeding directly into the Navy's Virginia-class program. The U.S. Navy has awarded Anduril a contract worth up to $2.9 billion for those components, a deal that, combined with other investment, brings the total project value to $6.6 billion, as reported by StreetInsider. Federal payments under that contract are tied directly to production results, with execution risk falling primarily on the company rather than taxpayers.
A Decades-Old Steel Site Returns to Shipbuilding
The Bethlehem Steel plant that once occupied the site built vessels that helped defend the United States during World War II, and the property helped shape America's broader steel and shipbuilding legacy, per WBAL. Anduril president and chief strategy officer Chris Brose said Arsenal-2 will return large-scale shipbuilding to the site. The project will make Baltimore County a critical part of America's submarine industrial base. The new facility is also expected to add production capacity the Navy needs to meet Virginia-class requirements.
Private capital investment behind Arsenal-2 totals $3.7 billion, which officials say will become the largest single private investment in Maryland, per WBAL. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said the overall project will be the largest private investment in the state in more than a decade, and that the facility will create pathways to work, wages and wealth through advanced training and high-skilled maritime manufacturing jobs. The state will also support construction of a workforce training facility near Tradepoint Atlantic.
Public Money and Timelines Still Taking Shape
State and Baltimore County officials have pledged to match up to 13 percent of the anticipated investment through existing economic incentive programs, according to WBAL. Appropriations could also go toward construction, pending approval by the County Council and General Assembly. That local commitment includes a proposed 30-year Baltimore County personal property tax incentive worth up to $210 million, part of roughly $500 million in expected public subsidies across state and local levels, according to The Baltimore Banner. The tax incentive still requires approval from the county council, and the Banner notes the Maryland General Assembly must also sign off on appropriations before the package is finalized.
Hiring for Arsenal-2 is slated to begin in 2029, with manufacturing operations at the Sparrows Point site targeted to launch by 2030, the Banner reports. Officials from the Maryland Governor's office project the facility will generate more than $2 billion in annual regional economic output, including over $300 million in annual worker wages, according to the Maryland Daily Record. Separately, that same outlet notes the U.S. Navy currently operates 26 Virginia-class attack submarines, with plans to add two more to its fleet. A senior administration official estimates Arsenal-2 will increase Virginia-class production by roughly 15 percent, with about 9 million labor hours added annually.
Breaking Up a Longtime Shipbuilding Monopoly
Full construction of Virginia-class submarines has historically been limited to a joint arrangement between General Dynamics' Electric Boat and Huntington Ingalls Industries' Newport News Shipbuilding, making Arsenal-2 Anduril's first major expansion into supplying legacy defense shipbuilding programs, according to Breaking Defense. Adding a third component supplier is intended to allow parallel manufacturing across the defense industrial base, which has struggled for years with bottlenecks that slow submarine delivery schedules.
Sparrows Point isn't Anduril's first standardized manufacturing hub. The company previously established “Arsenal-1” in Ohio to produce autonomous military equipment, a facility Hoodline covered in its drone factory report. Arsenal-2 is planned as a software-defined production facility. Anduril also runs a separate 160,000-square-foot production plant in Orange County, California, supporting broader maritime manufacturing, prototyping and production of components, including torpedo tubes, to ease immediate component backlogs ahead of the Sparrows Point opening, according to Quartz.
Tradepoint Atlantic held discussions with Anduril in August 2026 about a potential facility at Sparrows Point to manufacture autonomous crewless drone boats, according to CBS News. The submarine-component plan was announced this week.
Commuter Impacts During the Presidential Visit
The Maryland Transit Administration posted a service advisory during the president's visit Tuesday, warning of possible delays and route diversions, per WBAL. The advisory could affect the Route 411T commuter bus, which directly serves Tradepoint Atlantic. Arsenal-2 is expected to become Maryland's largest job creator over the coming decade, adding to a wave of development at Tradepoint Atlantic that includes a new container terminal.
