Saronic Breaks Ground on $3B Shipyard 'Port Alpha'

Saronic has broken ground on Port Alpha, a new U.S. shipyard at the Port of Brownsville, Texas, representing a private capital investment of more than $3 billion and a potentially significant addition to U.S. shipbuilding capacity.

Situated on 835 acres with an option to expand to nearly 4,400 acres, Port Alpha is being designed to build autonomous, autonomy-capable and manned vessels. Saronic said the project could eventually support up to 10,000 direct jobs.

At opening, the yard is planned to provide 150,000 gross tons of annual shipbuilding capacity, which Saronic said would more than double current U.S. commercial shipbuilding capacity. Long-term plans envision capacity exceeding 2 million gross tons annually.

“American shipbuilding needs to be rebuilt for what comes next,” said Dino Mavrookas, Saronic co-founder and CEO. “Port Alpha is where that starts.”

The initial development will include 1.2 million sq. ft. of enclosed production space within a 2.5-million-sq.-ft. production area, spread across eight to 10 production buildings. More than 2,500 ft. of deepwater quay will support the facility.

Two to four build positions are planned for final ship erection, backed by annual steel processing capacity of 75,000 tonnes. JE Dunn | Alberici Joint Venture has been selected to construct the initial phase.

Port Alpha will initially be capable of producing ships up to 850 ft. long. Saronic said future expansion could accommodate vessels exceeding 1,200 ft.

Initial production will include Landing Craft Utility (LCU) vessels for the U.S. Navy under a recently awarded Saronic contract, alongside autonomous and autonomy-capable vessels.

“Port Alpha is designed from the ground up to produce both autonomous and manned vessels at scale, with modularity and throughput shaping the shipyard’s architecture,” Mavrookas said. “This is one of the defining engineering challenges of our time.”

Texas Governor Greg Abbott said the project would “create 10,000 jobs and put hundreds of millions of dollars in annual paychecks into the hands of Texans.”

Saronic said the project will be developed in phases as it builds its workforce, supply chain and manufacturing processes.

“This is bigger than one shipyard,” Mavrookas said. “What stands on this ground in five years — the supplier base, the workforce, the ships themselves — is what will determine whether America leads at sea for the next century.”