Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao announced Friday the Navy has finalized the deal to allow Hunt Military Communities to run all of the housing for junior sailors in Hampton Roads.
"This investment in the renovation and building of housing for more than 8,000 sailors in the Hampton Roads area ensures our sailors have the quality of service they deserve while being good stewards of the American taxpayer's money," Cao said.
The $1.7 billion project is the largest barracks privatization project in the military. Cao made the announcement during a ceremony at Homeport Hampton Roads, which was already built and run by Hunt. The five-year contract requires Hunt to build or renovate 8,000 beds of new barracks space for junior enlisted sailors.
The largest portion of the new space is a 5,000 bed complex in Newport News, which will replace Huntington Hall. Construction on the new building is expected to start later in the fall, according to Hunt President Brian Stanns.
The company has already begun managing beds for 1,000 sailors, he said.
“We've been hiring a tremendous amount of people, bringing them on board as well to train them in our practice on how to maintain these rooms. This is going to grow rapidly, and we need to be able to answer the call for thousands more sailors,” Stanns said.
Cao said the Navy believes the project will allow the military to leverage money from the private sector to renovate and build new facilities for sailors more cheaply and more quickly than using the normal military construction process.
Critics have pointed out that Hunt has been sued by tenants of military family housing over issues with mold and substandard conditions. In 2022, Hunt settled a lawsuit where the federal government charged that Hunt misrepresented the amount of incentives it was eligible to receive for its contract for family housing at Dover Air Force Base in Colorado. Though the company did not admit to any wrong-doing, Hunt paid $500,000 to settle the case.
Newport News Mayor Phillip Jones said he is not concerned that contracts for barracks housing will have the same problems with lack of oversight that impacted privatized family housing.
“I would say it's different because any time that I talk to Brian Stann or the Secretary of the Navy, we only talk about quality of life for sailors,” Jones said.
