South Philadelphia’s long, storied shipbuilding history could return to the fore as a South Korean company plots a major expansion along its waterfront.
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Hanwha Group will invest $70M to upgrade two 1,000-foot docks in the Philadelphia Navy Yard so it can build between eight and 10 ships per year. That is a major shift from its current rate of one ship every eight months.
Some of these ships would be liquid natural gas carriers, which have never been manufactured in the U.S. before, The Korea Economic Daily reported.
Hanwha’s expansion is expected to grow its sales of Philly-built ships from $400M per year to $4B. The firm will double its workforce in the city to 4,000 by 2034 and plans to build new facilities elsewhere on the Delaware River, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Hanwha also hopes to manufacture unmanned seafaring vessels for the U.S. Navy as the federal government works to boost the domestic shipbuilding industry.
An executive order from President Donald Trump and the Shipbuilding and Harbor Infrastructure for Prosperity and Security Act passed by a bipartisan group of lawmakers earlier this year are designed to shore up the nation’s domestic shipbuilding capacity. The SHIPS ACT will give tax breaks for boat construction and shipyard improvements.
A major expansion is also underway at the Port of Philadelphia, which had a record 2024, with 841,000 20-foot equivalent units coming through the facility. Once its Destination 2040 plan is complete, officials expect PhilaPort to have a capacity of 1.5 million TEUs.
South Philly’s shipbuilding history stretches back to the American Revolution when the first iteration of the Navy Yard was built up in the neighborhood.
It relocated to the south end of Broad Street in 1876 and was decommissioned in 1996. Since then, the area has been redeveloped with offices and manufacturing facilities. The first apartment complex at the site, a 614-unit building from Korman Communities, is set to deliver in September.
