Electric Boat officially broke ground Friday on the Waterford Campus, launching the transformation of the former Crystal Mall into a center for innovation, engineering and high‑tech workforce development.
EB President Mark Rayha underscored how the project will reshape the way the company designs, tests and builds submarines. Innovation is the key, he said. “There’s an opportunity to reset labs, to reset our ability to do advanced engineering and automation so that we do things smarter, we do things faster and we can deliver that many more submarines to the nation.”
The Navy’s recent $76.6 billion contract award will push submarine production to levels not seen since the Cold War, requiring new capabilities and expanded facilities. Converting a shuttered mall into a next‑generation engineering and training campus, Rayha said, reflects EB’s willingness to rethink how it operates to meet national defense needs.
A cornerstone of the new campus is the Shipbuilding Advanced Institute for Learning, or SAIL — EB’s training facility designed to significantly grow the company’s workforce development capacity. Courtney Murphy, director of workforce development and talent acquisition, said the groundbreaking marks “the start of a new chapter in how we grow, train and support the shipbuilders who carry our mission forward.” With 40 classrooms, augmented and virtual‑reality labs, hands‑on submarine mockups and a 73‑booth weld school, SAIL will support nearly 400 shipbuilders training daily across three shifts.
The Waterford Campus will play a central role as EB hires 8,000 new employees in 2026 and another 8,000 in 2027 to meet accelerating production demands.
Local and state leaders praised the project as one of Connecticut’s most significant adaptive‑reuse efforts. “Where most people saw an empty mall, we saw 900,000 square feet of opportunity,” said Waterford First Selectman Rob Brule, noting the campus’s impact on jobs, education and the region’s economic future.
Southeastern Connecticut’s congressional delegation lauded EB’s contributions to both the local economy and to the nation’s security. “We don’t have gold mines, we don’t have the Grand Canyon, we don’t have tremendous national resources. What we have are really smart people,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a member of the Senate Committee on Armed Services. “And Electric Boat is attracting more and more of them and making use of skilled, adroit and hard-working people to make Connecticut great.”
