With the push of a button, U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono, U.S. Pacific Fleet Commander Adm. Samuel Paparo and Roy Morioka, DHO JV Dry Dock 5 project manager, in February completed a crucial phase of the highest-value single project in U.S. Navy history.
Dry Dock 5, with a maximum project value of $3.4 billion, will expand Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard’s maintenance capabilities, which are “absolutely indispensable to our nation’s defense,” Adm. Paparo said during a Feb. 24 ceremony marking the permanent installation of the dock’s first group of anchor pilings. Minutes later, Paparo, Hirono and Morioka signaled a remaining 75-foot-high anchor piling to begin its final descent into the sea.
The joint action by these three leaders epitomizes the extraordinary cooperation between government, the military and private industry that is the foundation for Hawai‘i’s historic new dry dock, says Navy Capt. Stephen Padhi, who heads the project as commanding officer of Officer in Charge of Construction, Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard.
“It really points to a whole-of-industry effort,” he says.
DHO JV is installing more than 6,000 pilings at the Dry Dock 5 project. PHOTO COURTESY U.S. NAVY
U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono signs a wide-diameter steel piling during a Navy installation ceremony in February.
PHOTO COURTESY U.S. NAVY/JUSTICE VANNATTA
THE NAVY’S TOP PERFORMER
Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, founded in 1908, is the top-performing shipyard in the U.S., said Adm. Paparo during the ceremony. The shipyard’s Dry Dock 3, built in the 1940s, is too small to service the Navy’s larger Virginia-class submarines and other modern vessels.
The new Dry Dock 5 will shoulder this task for the next 150 years.
Dry Dock 5 will be 650 feet long — longer than the Washington Monument is tall — 100 feet wide and 55.5 feet deep. The new dock’s job site along the shipyard shore extends across the water to Waipio Peninsula, where the project team has set up an approximately 56-acre staging, laydown and fabrication area. General contractor Dragados/Hawaiian Dredging/Orion Joint Venture (DHO JV) is working on both sides of the water.
Dawson and Hawaiian Dredging Construction Co. Inc. workers pose for a photo during a recent project.
PHOTO COURTESY DAWSON
At Dry Dock 5, subcontractor HCR uses a 275-ton Manitowoc 999 track crane, pictured above at a recent non-military job site.
PHOTO COURTESY HAWAIIAN CRANE & RIGGING LTD.
The first major task is shoring wall construction, which is scheduled to continue through March 2025. Project Manager Morioka says the shoring wall and other dock structures are being framed with wide-diameter steel pilings — 85 inches and 60 inches in diameter. More than 6,000 pilings in total will be used to build the dock and its adjacent facilities, including smaller pipe piles, H-piles, I-beam piles and others.
According to Capt. Padhi, wide-diameter pilings allow for “about a 90 percent reduction in pile-driving just for the shoring walls, which is significant because that is the critical path of construction. It’s a technical first for Pearl Harbor.”
The new dry dock will also need concrete — about 250,000 cubic yards to build the dock, its support structures and ancillary areas.
Healy Tibbitts is the managing partner for the $17 million Repair 24-Inch Underwater Waterline Crossing project, existing pipeline removal, shown here in 2023.
PHOTO COURTESY HEALY TIBBITTS BUILDERS INC.
Hensel Phelps’ command headquarters project at Guam’s Marine Corps Base Camp Blaz is valued at $62.8 million. PHOTO COURTESY HENSEL PHELPS
Right now, says Morioka, the DHO JV team is setting up a fabrication area on Waipio Peninsula to build the dock’s floor units. DHO JV will construct nine precast concrete floor units, transport them across Pearl Harbor using a semi-submersible barge, then sink them into the new dry dock.
The dock’s construction has far to go, but Dry Dock 5 is already serving the state of Hawai‘i. According to the state’s Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism’s Research and Economic Analysis division, the Navy’s Dry Dock 5 construction budget for fiscal years 2023 through 2025 will contribute more than 10 percent to Hawai‘i’s construction industry, about $10 billion a year.
Factoring in ripple effects, each million dollars of Navy construction spending generates $2.1 million in business sales. Each million dollars of dry dock spending generates $88,300 in state taxes and generates or supports nine jobs.
NEW WAVE OF CONSTRUCTION
Before Dry Dock 5 finishes in 2027, it will likely be joined by other large projects that are also part of the Navy’s Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program.
The Chamber of Commerce Hawaii reports the Navy recently revised its funding targets, and now estimates it will invest $30 billion over the next 30 years at Pearl Harbor.
“These projects are in alignment with our development plans,” explains Capt. Padhi. The Navy is putting out “a once-in-a-generation level of effort for new construction, recapitalization and reconfiguration.”
Army Corps of Engineers, State, County Join Forces
When the first U.S. Army Corps of Engineers specialists arrived on Maui on Aug. 12 last year, the town of Lāhainā was still smoldering after wildfires killed more than 100 people.
In the following months, additional recovery and remediation teams were dispatched from USACE’s Pacific Ocean Division, says Melanie Peterson, USACE public affairs specialist.
“Four-hundred and seventy-six personnel have been deployed since the Aug. 8 wildfires,” she says.
USACE missions on Maui are FEMA-assigned, and include commercial and residential debris, critical public facilities (including a temporary elementary school), temporary housing, and vessel and vehicle removal. As of mid-March, 316 properties had completed physical debris removal.
“The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, along with other federal partners, has provided tremendous support to the county of Maui and has played a vital role in the county’s ability to provide care for its residents in the aftermath of the Aug. 8, 2023 wildfires,” says Maui Mayor Richard T. Bissen Jr. “We are grateful that USACE has moved quickly and with cultural sensitivity in clearing properties of debris in Upcountry Maui and historic Lāhainā town, moving residents closer to returning to their homes.”
Maui mission partners also include the state of Hawai‘i, whose “response has been instrumental in the recovery efforts, particularly in the areas of debris removal in Upcountry Maui and Lāhainā, the establishment of a temporary elementary school in Kā‘anapali for King Kamehameha III Elementary School and the creation of a temporary housing site in Kilohana,” Gov. Josh Green’s office wrote in a March email. “The state is actively engaged in collaboration efforts with various federal, state and county entities to address the remediation of affected areas on Maui.
“The ongoing partnership with these stakeholders underscores the state’s commitment to the successful recovery and restoration of the impacted regions.”
This Nan Inc. Bachelor Enlisted Quarters project at Marine Corps Base Hawaii is valued at $122.57 million and is expected to wrap in July. PHOTO COURTESY NAN INC.
‘Ohana Military Communities’ Roof Replacements project replaces 359 of the oldest roofs at Pearl City Peninsula, with roofing similar to what’s being used on the completed project shown above. PHOTO COURTESY ‘OHANA MILITARY COMMUNITIES
Nordic PCL’s recent renovation work at Schofield Barracks Buildings 2075 and 2076 includes demolition and repair of interior walls and finishes, along with replacement of most building systems. PHOTO COURTESY HAWKINS BIGGINS
Army Corps of Engineers, State, County Join Forces
When the first U.S. Army Corps of Engineers specialists arrived on Maui on Aug. 12 last year, the town of Lāhainā was still smoldering after wildfires killed more than 100 people.
In the following months, additional recovery and remediation teams were dispatched from USACE’s Pacific Ocean Division, says Melanie Peterson, USACE public affairs specialist.
“Four-hundred and seventy-six personnel have been deployed since the Aug. 8 wildfires,” she says.
According to Sherry Menor-McNamara, Chamber of Commerce Hawaii president and CEO, “a notable positive trend in federal spending is evident in Hawai‘i, with expenditures experiencing a remarkable growth of over 40 percent over the past five years.”
Current projects by some of Hawai‘i’s leading defense builders, listed below in alphabetical order, are part of this upward trend.
DAWSON
• Repair Building 759, Schofield Barracks.
• Red Hill AFFF System Repair, Red Hill.
DRAGADOS/HAWAIIAN DREDGING/ORION JV
• Dry Dock 5, Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility (PHNSY & IMF), $3.4 billion (maximum project value).
HAWAIIAN CRANE & RIGGING LTD.
• Dry Dock 5, PHNSY & IMF.
HEALY TIBBITTS BUILDERS INC.
• Honolulu Harbor Phase IV Maintenance Dredging, $8 million.
• Repair 24-Inch Underwater Waterline Crossing, Ford Island to Landing C, Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, $17 million.
• Two Pacific projects with a combined value of approximately $236 million.
HENSEL PHELPS
• PN76897 Aircraft Maintenance Hangar, Wheeler Army Airfield, $79.6 million.
• Two O‘ahu water/wastewater projects with a combined value of approximately $26.9 million.
• Five Pacific projects with a combined value of approximately $230.8 million.
NAN INC.
• Renovate Building 1670, Schofield Barracks, $30.4 million.
• Bachelor Enlisted Quarters, P956 and P973, Marine Corps Base Hawaii, $174.5 million.
• Two O‘ahu child development centers, one at Aliamanu Military Reservation ($53.16 million) and one at Schofield Barracks ($44.7 million).
• Multiple projects throughout Hawai‘i and the Pacific with a combined value in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
NORDIC PCL CONSTRUCTION INC.
• Repair Building 2077, Schofield Barracks, $25.7 million.
• Repair Building 118, Wheeler Army Airfield, $25.2 million.
• Repair Buildings 2075 & 2076, Schofield Barracks.
‘OHANA MILITARY COMMUNITIES
• Hokulani Renovation, renovate 190 homes, Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam (JBPHH).
• Roof Replacements, replace 359 of the oldest roofs within Pearl City Peninsula, JBPHH.
• Hawai‘i Loa Renovation, renovate 237 homes, Marine Corps Base Hawaii.
