It’s been more than a year since Austal USA broke ground on a massive facility called FA2 , one of two separate expansion projects that each will house about 1,000 new jobs. Yet, if you’re looking across the Mobile River from downtown, the shipbuilder looks much the same as it did then.

Is the promised tsunami of jobs still coming? Company leadership says it is, and that work to create infrastructure needed to house them will soon become much more evident.

The company’s two main construction bays are a familiar part of the waterfront skyline. And there’s even an Independence-class Littoral Combat Ship parked in the vicinity. That’s been a common sight since 2008, but this is the last of them, the 19th, LCS-38, soon to be commissioned as the USS Pierre.

Austal USA’s days as a specializ

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