CLEVELAND — President Donald Trump announced plans for a new facility in Cleveland that will repair components for U.S. submarines at a recent Ohio rally, but details of the project remain scarce.
Watch the full video below:
"The Department of War has officially selected the new home of the U.S. Submarine Component Repair Center, a big deal that everybody wanted and it's going to be right here in Ohio in Cleveland," Trump said at a rally in Youngstown.
Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, applauded President Donald Trump’s announcement, which followed Husted's letter to Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought and Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao urging the administration to consider Northeast Ohio for the facility.
“Northeast Ohio has the skilled workforce, infrastructure and strategic location to support this critical mission for our U.S. Navy. This facility will strengthen our national security, support military readiness and create jobs in Cleveland. I urged the administration to bring this facility to Northeast Ohio, and I’m proud to see Cleveland selected as its home. I’ll continue fighting for projects that strengthen our nation’s defense and create opportunities for Ohio workers,” said Husted in a release.
Related: Trump announces submarine repair facility planned for Cleveland
Details about the project remain limited. News 5 has chronicled the backlog of needed repairs to the U.S. Navy's Submarine fleet in large part because of the efforts of a local company, Bartlett Maritime, to fix it.
Bartlett has been working with the Navy since 2024 to train Northeast Ohio workers, welders and others with the skills needed to carry out repair work at shipyards on a rotational basis. A contract that was just extended this summer.
Beyond that, Bartlett has for years been pushing for a component repair facility in Lorain that would handle the repair and rebuilding of all of the parts that go into the overhaul of a sub. Under the initial plans, those completed parts would be shipped to a kitting facility to be built in Lordstown that would be put into a kit and shipped to a shipyard ahead of the sub's arrival for work, shaving about 100 days off the repair process.
That's something Bartlett told News 5 in 2024 he believed would happen.
"That program is working its way through the bureaucracy in Washington. I believe it's getting favorable reviews. When that is announced, that'll have an impact, an economic impact of as many as 15,000 new jobs in the Northeast Ohio area," Bartlett said in 2024.
The number of jobs associated with the facility the president announced was not released. News 5 reached out to Bartlett to see if the president's announcement is part of its proposal. Bartlett deferred to the White House, saying only that "we have long held that a Component Repair Center will add desperately needed capacity to America's submarine industrial base, and that Northeast Ohio is exactly the right place to operate a CRC."
In August, Washington put out a memorandum on Rebuilding the United States Navy and America's Shipbuilding Industrial Base where they outlined the space they were looking to identify within 90 days.
"A plan to establish a Component Repair Center to receive new and refurbish old components and parts as required by the submarine repair industrial base. The plan shall identify geographically centralized locations proximate to major road, rail, and river transportation networks, and include such resourcing requirements as necessary to maintain at least one “ship set” of spare equipment for the Los Angeles, Virginia, Seawolf, Ohio, and Columbia classes."
In response to that search, Lorain Mayor Jack Bradley sent a letter again pitching his city for the site. Bradley told News 5 he hasn't heard anything from Washington, but the city remains ready to play a role if asked.
The City of Cleveland said in a statement "there are no specific details to share at this time. The City would welcome and support the Navy’s interest in development opportunities in Cleveland," the city said on Tuesday.
The president said in his speech the center would be a "massive 46,000-square-foot facility," which is slightly smaller than a grocery store. News 5 reached out to the White House for clarification on that but did not hear back.
