U.S. Sens. Tommy Tuberville (R-Auburn) and Katie Britt (R-Montgomery) joined federal and military leaders Friday in Cherokee for the ribbon-cutting of Hadrian’s Factory 4, a $2.4 billion submarine manufacturing facility that both senators described as transformational for Alabama and critical to American defense.
The 2.2-million-square-foot facility at the Barton Riverfront Industrial Park will produce components for the Navy’s Columbia- and Virginia-class submarine programs. The project combines more than $1.5 billion in private capital from Hadrian with $900 million in federal funding through Navy appropriations.
Tuberville told the crowd the project’s impact will extend far beyond the factory walls and far beyond the near term.
“This is not a five or 10 year project,” Tuberville said. “Most everybody in here will be dead and gone, and they’ll still be building submarines here.”
“There will be hundreds of billions of dollars that will be sent to Northwest Alabama with this project alone,” Tuberville continued. “It’s not just this project. There will be buildings built all around several counties, building infrastructure for making parts. It’s like bringing a car manufacturing place in. You don’t build the parts here. You put them together. They’ve got to be built in other places.”
Speaking to reporters after the ceremony, Tuberville said the facility stands apart from other major investments Alabama has attracted in recent years.
“We have multi-billion dollar companies that have moved to this state over the years. We have some more coming,” Tuberville said. “Nothing more important than this.”
Britt framed the project against the backdrop of a growing gap between American and Chinese naval production capacity. A U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence assessment found that China’s shipbuilding capacity exceeds that of the United States by more than 200 times.
“We saw a declassification several years ago of the fact that China can build ships over 200 times faster,” Britt said in remarks to reporters. “We know that we have to elevate. Alabama is going to be the center of doing that.”
During her speech, Britt described the facility as part of a broader shift in American manufacturing.
“This is transformative for the Shoals. It’s transformative for Alabama, for Mississippi, for the entire region and our nation,” Britt said.
“We Alabamians are going to be part of rebuilding, transforming and supercharging America’s domestic manufacturing and defense industrial base,” she added.
Both senators credited President Trump’s leadership and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which included $29.2 billion in defense funding that helped make the project possible.
Secretary of the Navy John Phelan, who spoke at the ceremony, called the facility “the beginning of the Golden Fleet,” referring to the Trump administration’s initiative to restore American maritime power.
Phelan said the factory represents a new approach to defense procurement, with Hadrian’s private capital going in first and the Navy’s commitment following based on demonstrated performance.
“We are done with free money from the Department of the Navy to defense primes,” Phelan said. “Risk is shared. Performance is required.”
The facility is expected to create more than 1,000 jobs paying north of $70,000 a year, according to officials.
Hadrian’s AI-powered manufacturing platform is designed to train workers with no prior manufacturing experience to full productivity within 30 days.
Factory 4 is the first of three planned facilities aimed at addressing bottlenecks in the maritime industrial base. Hadrian CEO Chris Power said the company ultimately envisions five large-scale facilities to support the Golden Fleet initiative.
The Cherokee site, formerly home to FreightCar America before its closure in 2021, is the first large-scale inland manufacturing facility dedicated to the U.S. maritime industrial base.
Also in attendance Friday were House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Saks), Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), and Reps. Robert Aderholt (R-Haleyville), Barry Moore (R-Enterprise), Dale Strong (R-Huntsville), and Gary Palmer (R-Hoover), alongside state and local leaders.
Sawyer Knowles is a capitol reporter 256 Today and Yellowhammer News.
