BATH – Bath Iron Works broke ground Tuesday on a housing project that shipyard officials hope will help alleviate a worker shortage. 

Eighty-four units are planned for the site at 150 Congress Ave. 

Housing remains one of the biggest obstacles to growing the shipyard’s workforce, according to BIW President Charles Krugh.

“Over the last five years we’ve hired a lot of folks and we’ve had a lot of attrition because people just couldn’t find a place to stay,” he said. 

The shipyard has been working on the project for the past two years with Developers Collaborative, a Portland-based developer known for affordable housing projects.

Krugh declined to say how much the project will cost, but said it was funded in part from funding from the U.S. Navy, provided by allocations from U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

Figures for what the rates would be on the new units were not yet available. Shipyard officials said the units would be offered at a price workers can afford.

A church that currently sits at the site will be demolished. Krugh said some materials would be saved and integrated into the new project. 

Bath Housing purchased the property in 2022, according to director Debora Keller. There wasn’t a plan for the property at the time, she said, but she has a long-term goal of seeing 200 new housing units along the city’s Congress Avenue corridor.

“This project represents a path forward,” she said Tuesday. “New housing units like these are essential to Bath’s future.”

Krugh estimates the project will be finished by mid-2027.