Hadrian, the advanced manufacturing company, today opened a new facility in Cherokee, Alabama dedicated to the U.S. Navy’s Columbia- and Virginia-class submarine programs. Secretary of the Navy John C. Phelan, Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL-04), Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL-03), Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL), and Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony alongside state and local leaders.
Known as Factory 4, the Cherokee facility is an advanced, highly automated manufacturing plant that will mass-produce components needed for submarine construction, including parts, assemblies, and finished products. These products have been identified by the industry as the largest drivers of submarine schedules, so increasing production allows submarines to also be produced faster. F4 will be one of three facilities producing systems for the maritime industrial base, with one of the facilities slated to be a Foundry of the Future, focused on castings and forging. The contract with the Navy is structured as a public-private partnership combining more than $1.5 billion in private capital with $900 million in government funding through Navy appropriations, for a total investment of more than $2.4 billion.
The opening in Muscle Shoals comes as the Navy moves to address longstanding capacity shortfalls in the submarine industrial base. Secretary Phelan, speaking at the 2026 WEST conference in February, described closing that gap as central to the Administration’s Golden Fleet initiative, which includes $59 billion in cumulative shipbuilding investment since the President took office. “The government cannot deliver the Golden Fleet alone—fast enough or at scale,” Phelan said. “Private-sector partnership is not optional. It is foundational. The opening also comes as the Administration approaches the one-year anniversary of the President’s Executive Order on Maritime Dominance, which directed federal agencies to accelerate investment in the domestic shipbuilding and submarine industrial base.”
“The Administration has set the strategy, Congress has cleared a path, the Navy has set the requirement, and Secretary Phelan has been unambiguous that private-sector partnership is foundational, not optional, to deter threats to national security. Industry has to answer that call with real execution, and the window to do it is now. We are proud to be part of the coalition building that capacity, and this factory is Hadrian’s commitment to meeting this moment,” said Chris Power, Founder and CEO of Hadrian.
The Cherokee facility transforms a 2.2 million-square-foot site in The Shoals region into an advanced production hub. Formerly the largest railcar manufacturing facility in the country before production was outsourced to Mexico, this first phase of this new facility is expected to reach full-rate production capacity within 24 months of contract award. Other parts of the facility are slated for construction over the coming months.
The facility is expected to create up to 1,000 high-quality jobs when fully operational. Labor availability has been one of the most acute constraints in the maritime industrial base; the sector has historically required years of specialized training before workers reach production-ready proficiency. Hadrian’s manufacturing platform, Opus, is designed to close that gap. By automating the most technically demanding steps in the production process, the system is engineered so that technicians with limited prior manufacturing experience can reach full productivity within 30 days.
“This is a novel transaction with Hadrian— providing the Department of the Navy downside protection and upside participation,” said Secretary of the Navy John C. Phelan. “More than $1.5 billion in capital from Hadrian comes in first. The Department of the Navy follows with a commitment of $900 million to scale up the factory, grounded in demonstrated performance and ensuring we are investing in outcomes, not promises. Risk is shared. Performance is required. The Department of the Navy has a stake in the outcome. And American taxpayers will benefit from our success. That alignment matters. Because we are done with a system that rewards process over delivery. We are done with free money from the Department of the Navy.”
Cherokee, Alabama is the first large-scale inland advanced manufacturing facility dedicated to the U.S. maritime industrial base. Hadrian has four facilities totaling approximately 2.85M square feet across California, Arizona, and Alabama, and is developing additional production sites covering the full suite of production, from components to complete products and assemblies.