Birdon America’s headquarters in the Southeast and a new Tier 2 shipbuilding facility in Pensacola, Fla., moved one step closer to reality June 22 when the board of directors of Triumph Gulf Coast approved the term sheet for a $76 million grant for the project.
Triumph Gulf Coast is the nonprofit corporation established to oversee the expenditure of 75% of funds recovered for economic damages to the state of Florida that resulted from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010.
The total project cost is $275 million, with funds anticipated from Triumph Gulf Coast, the Florida Job Growth Fund ($14 million), the U.S. Department of Commerce ($33 million), and Birdon ($152 million). Birdon America and the city of Pensacola plan to build a 4,000-square-foot facility at the Port of Pensacola that will create 2,000 jobs, 1,437 of which will carry an average salary of $68,000 and 563 of which will pay an average of $112,000. Besides serving as a headquarters for Birdon America’s operations in the South, the shipbuilding facility will build mid-sized (Tier 2) vessels and U.S. military modules for Tier 1 shipyards constructing ships and submarines for the military…