Transforming Newport News
Proposed Navy housing development could boost city’s downtown efforts
The Navy is considering investing $400 million in new housing in downtown Newport News for sailors assigned to vessels at the shipyard. It’s an exciting proposal that would be transformational in several ways and one the General Assembly and Gov. Glenn Youngkin should support.
City officials have wrestled for years with how to breathe new life into the downtown district. What was once a thriving center of residential and commercial life was hollowed out as people moved out and businesses shuttered, leaving little but parking lots around the shipyard for the thousands who commute each day to work.
That is, in part, a self-inflicted wound. For instance, the construction of City Center created an alternate “downtown” where residents, businesses, corporate residents and even some city offices soon gathered. As migration quickened, crime and related problems festered in the old downtown.
Mayor Phillip Jones has made downtown redevelopment a priority since taking office in 2022, and his enthusiasm for that effort is infectious. In a January interview, the Marine Corps veteran outlined his determination to see new investment, construction and population growth downtown while tending to underserved neighborhoods, such as the Southeast Community.
A partnership with the Navy, then, makes sense on a number of levels.
Building housing for service members would put them adjacent to the shipyard, where thousands are assigned to ships being repaired or refueled or who work in partnership with Newport News Shipbuilding. That would introduce to the area a new population of residents who, in turn, would help support businesses — grocery stores, restaurants, retail stores — in that district.
The major complaint by those who have forged ahead with businesses there is that downtown Newport News has too few residents, that tens of thousands of people converge there for work and, once done, return home.
“This is our downtown, empty, and we have to fix that,” Jones said in December. “And there’s multiple reasons for why it’s empty, whether it’s shipyard parking, lack of safety, transportation, there’s multiple things that are happening here.”
However, the proposal to build housing for Navy personnel downtown would address another vital concern.
In 2022, three sailors assigned to the USS George Washington died by suicide within a week. The Washington was undergoing a lengthy overhaul at the time, and a Navy investigation found that crew members were housed in poor conditions and the service did not adequately tend to quality-of-life issues and their mental health.
This wasn’t a crisis exclusive to the Washington or sailors at the shipyard — four other sailors assigned to the MidAtlantic Regional Maintenance Center in Norfolk died of suicide within the span of a month in 2022 — but it sounded an alarm for the service about the need to better care for its people.
Building housing near Newport News Shipbuilding would help alleviate worries about the condition of sailors’ housing, as it would put them in new facilities adjacent to the shipyard. It would foster a sense of community, combatting young service members’ feelings of loneliness and boosting their morale. It would show them the Navy has their backs.
Newport News spokesperson Kim Bracy told the Daily Press that in order to unlock this potential windfall, the Navy wants the state to foot 10% of the cost, or $40 million. Del. Marcia S. “Cia” Price, D-Newport News, introduced an amendment to Youngkin’s two-year-budget proposal that would provide $20 million each in 2025 and 2026. It was included in the House budget but not in the Senate version.
As budget negotiators hash out the details of the two-year spending plan, they should look favorably on Price’s proposal and recognize the tremendous potential it represents. This relatively small investment would make an enormous difference in the lives of our Navy personnel and in the future of Newport News.
Rare is the initiative that could prove transformational in several ways, but undoubtedly this is one such project. State lawmakers and the governor should see that it’s included in the final budget.