AUGUST 4, 2013—In a move to be more competitive with its rival Huntington Ingalls Industries for U.S. Navy shipbuilding contracts, General Dynamics' Bath Iron Works, Bath, ME, is seeking tax breaks the city of Bath to build a new outfitting hall at its shipyard.

According to a report in the Kennebec Journal, Bath Iron Works (BIW) filed paperwork for tax increment financing for the project. If the project move forward, the outfitting hall would be completed in 2015.

The outfitting hall would be a 110-foot-high, 51,315-square-foot building just south of the existing 68,000-square-foot "Ultra Hall," according to the Kennebec Journal.

The expansion would also include an upgrade to existing buildings.

As we reported back in June, the U.S. Navy awarded contracts to build nine DDG-51 Class destroyers, five to Huntington Ingalls Industries' Ingalls Shipbuilding and four to General Dynamics' BIW. The GD-BIW contains an option for a fifth destroyer.

Back in 2008, BIW opened at its Land Level Transfer Facility its Ultra Hall, a huge climate-controlled building that can accommodate the construction of ship modules as large as 4,000 tons indoors.