SPAWAR breaks ground on $10 million expansion

About 200 engineers and technicians currently working out of 10 temporary buildings on the Charleston Naval Weapons Station are finally trading up.

Officials from the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Charleston, also known as SPAWAR, broke ground Thursday on a $10 million expansion that will put those workers under one roof.

The 57,625-square-foot office, near SPAWAR’s $27 million main complex at the south end of the Weapons Station, is expected to be ready in spring 2007.

“It will be modern, state-of-the-art and completely wired,” said spokeswoman Marsha Hassell. “It will meet the equipment needs for testing and evaluating the systems we work on.”

Congress funded the expansion in 2004, five years after the Navy’s high-tech center identified what it called “a need for adequate and efficient facilities” to house some of its growing operations in Charleston. “You have to go through the congressional process,” Hassell said.