(NEW ORLEANS) — Two years after it was put up for sale, Huntington Ingalls Industries has found a buyer for the former Avondale shipyard, but few details have been released about the idle facility’s future, the DailyComet.com reported
“We signed a purchase-and-sale agreement for the sale of the property,” Chris Kastner, Huntington Ingalls’ chief financial officer, told analysts in an earnings call Aug. 3. “While this is a positive step toward an eventual sale, a comprehensive due-diligence process will now be initiated before the potential buyer is obligated to close.”
The facility consists of 206 acres and includes more than 7,900 feet of riverfront access. It also provides users deepwater access. The facility had been developed incrementally since 1938.
In late 2011, Northrop Grumman Corp. announced plans to shutter Avondale — once Louisiana’s largest private employer — and consolidate its shipbuilding operations in Mississippi. The company subsequently spun off its shipbuilding business into Huntington Ingalls Industries.
The Avondale facility once employed thousands of workers, but the number began falling sharply in 2013 as work wrapped up on the last Navy warship built from the keel up.
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