A new facility is being planned in D.C. to address the significant labor shortage in the U.S. maritime industry.

A partnership of local universities, nonprofits and real estate firms is working to open the Prometheus Center for Excellence to provide vocational training programs for the maritime industry, and it is now searching D.C.’s real estate market for 50K to 100K SF to lease for the facility, Bisnow has learned.

Sosena Desta, founder of development firm Women at Work, is working on the project with Gregory Glaros, a retired Navy fighter pilot and CEO of engineering firm Synexxus, Inc., she said in an interview.

They have brought together a series of organizations to partner on the effort, including local community colleges, tech company GreenpointXR, real estate firm Orr Partners and The Coalition, Desta said. And she is in discussions with the U.S. Navy, Lockheed Martin and the Navy Memorial Foundation.

Desta said she came up with the idea after learning that schools close to maritime ports have struggled to produce workers to fill the industry’s labor shortage. And she said it fits in with the D.C. government's goal of growing the presence of educational institutions in the city.

“What I proposed to them is that D.C. is a transient community, people move in and out, so it would be a great place to capture people coming from the Midwest, the South, to learn this trade in D.C.” she said. “They caught onto the idea, I created a business plan and ran it by them, it picked up and now we’re creating this center in D.C.”

The center plans to offer training in electrical work, machinery operations, welding, pipe fitting, and other shipyard-specific skills. It seeks to place trained workers into shipyards, private maritime companies and government and military shipbuilding operations.

The team is looking at warehouse space and vacant school buildings in D.C. Desta said they prefer spaces near a Metro station for easy accessibility.

Orr Partners, which has worked on projects with the Navy, would help build out the property into a maritime training facility with a combination of classrooms and hands-on spaces for practical development.

The developers expect to spend between $35M and $50M building the project, depending on the property they select, Desta said. She is hoping to lease a property and start work this year.

"We're still looking for the right real estate, the right asset to place this training center," Orr Partners Vice President Sarah Bishop said. "Sosena has all the partners she needs and is talking to the right people. It's a matter of nailing down the asset we're looking to use."