Editor’s note: This article was updated with additional information about the underused acres at the port.
Stockton’s vision to become the home of a major West Coast shipyard, a project that could bring a boatload of high-paying jobs to the city, took a giant leap forward Monday.
Mayor Christina Fugazi, Interim City Manager Steve Colangelo and Port of Stockton officials are part of the city’s delegation to Washington, D.C., for high-level meetings over the next four days, according to city spokesperson Tony Mannor.
“They are going to be making a pitch for a shipyard in Stockton,” he said in an interview Thursday.
Other cities seem to be interested in the prospect as well. Vallejo has Mare Island, once the Navy’s most important West Coast shipbuilding and repair hub. And even Solano County has been touted as a potential shipyard site, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
But as Colangelo disclosed to the City Council last week, Stockton has an ace in the hole: strong interest from one of the nation’s largest shipbuilders.
It’s not yet been disclosed which shipbuilder approached city officials. Mannor, however, offered a small hint: It’s one with federal contracts that already is producing ships for the U.S. Navy.
Stockton’s campaign to bring a shipyard back to the port has been months in the making.
As Stocktonia reported in April, city officials are heeding the Trump administration’s call for returning the U.S. to a shipbuilding power. Over the decades, commercial shipyards have gone largely to China, South Korea, Japan and other nations.
“This would bring thousands of jobs for our region,” Fugazi said at the time. “They will be livable-wage jobs.
“I definitely think this would be an opportunity for us, considering what we used to be,” Fugazi said, referring to the storied history Stockton has a shipbuilding city.
The benefits could also go beyond the city. San Joaquin Delta College, for instance, could become a key hub in educating workers in the skilled trades that shipbuilding demands.
Unlike other West Coast ports jam-packed with shipping-container terminals, the Port of Stockton is blessed with ample, and mostly underutilized, land. Rough and Ready Island’s West Complex is 1,400 acres. The East Complex — the original port — is 600 acres. In addition, the port owns an additional 2,000 acres down-river primarily pegged for potential future development.
“The majority of our 7.7 million-square-feet of covered storage is on the West Complex and we have approximately 300 to 400 acres for development,” Port Director Kirk DeJesus told Stocktonia. “My assumption is that any potential shipbuilding would happen on the West Complex, but we are not sure yet what the land requirements might be.”
It also has a compatible history.
In the 1940s, Stockton boasted several shipyards that produced mostly smaller warships and vessels. Those efforts played an outsized role in helping the U.S. win World War II.
The yards gradually faded away in the 1950s. But now, one could potentially rise again.
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