JLL Advises, Provides Brokerage Services for Mare Island Maritime Campus

JLL announced that it has been exclusively retained to provide strategic advisory and brokerage services for Mare Island Maritime Campus, a maritime industrial property with two million square feet of existing buildings and four operational dry docks. Located in Vallejo, California, the former Mare Island Naval Shipyard represents an opportunity as federal mandates and bipartisan legislation drive the largest maritime industrial mobilization since World War II.

JLL is advising The Nimitz Group, owner of the maritime industrial land and assets, on repositioning the property’s maritime infrastructure to accommodate surging demand for domestic ship and submarine manufacturing. The owner is pursuing flexible transaction structures, including leasing individual assets or entering into strategic partnerships with investors or tenants.

Established in 1854 as the first permanent U.S. Navy base on the West Coast, Mare Island operated continuously until 1996, employing over 40,000 workers at its wartime peak and building nuclear submarines throughout the 1950s and 1960s. The property is now privately controlled and positioned to meet surging demand for domestic shipbuilding capacity.

The campus features four dry docks, three shipways, two miles of seawall, one mile of berthing, 30-foot channel depth with deepwater access and over 30 megawatts of available power capacity. The property includes development-ready land for expansion and modernization.

Mare Island’s location is 60 miles from Silicon Valley, allowing operators to tap into the 20% of U.S. artificial intelligence talent located in the Bay Area.  

The property can accommodate public-private partnerships, anchor tenant arrangements, build-to-suit configurations or acquisitions to support federal and commercial maritime objectives. JLL is actively engaging with shipbuilders, defense contractors, maritime operators and institutional investors seeking to participate in the expanding U.S. naval and commercial shipbuilding sector.