The Navy has awarded TOTE Services LLC a $2,206,000,000 firm-fixed-price contract to manage construction of up to eight new Medium Landing Ships, according to the Department of War's July 13, 2026 daily contract announcement. With contract options exercised, the cumulative value could reach $2,605,075,850, making it one of the largest single awards in the Navy's current shipbuilding push.
Background
The Medium Landing Ship, designated LSM, is a Navy program built around a simpler, more affordable amphibious connector than the Navy's traditional large-deck landing ships. The class is intended to move Marines and equipment between islands and austere locations in a contested environment, supporting the Marine Corps' push toward distributed, mobile operations across the Indo-Pacific. The Navy has spent several years refining the LSM requirement, and this award marks a shift into full construction management for a batch of up to eight hulls. The Marine Corps has designated the class the McClung-class Landing Ship Medium, built to a design based on Dutch shipbuilder Damen's LST-100, according to the February 2026 USNI News report on the Navy's shipyard selection.
Rather than build the ships directly, TOTE Services will serve as the construction manager, awarding and overseeing subcontracts with shipyards responsible for actually fabricating the vessels. TOTE Services, based in Jacksonville, Florida, is a ship management firm that already operates a fleet of more than 30 vessels for government and commercial clients and is part of the Saltchuk family of companies, according to a TOTE Services announcement of the award, positioning it as an intermediary layer between the Navy and the shipyards that will cut steel.
The award lands squarely within the Trump administration's broader shipbuilding revitalization effort. The contract announcement explicitly ties the funding to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Public Law 119-21, and states the award "directly supports the national effort to revitalize and rebuild American shipbuilding." That law has funneled billions of dollars into Navy shipbuilding accounts as the service tries to rebuild a domestic shipbuilding base that has shrunk for decades, leaving the country reliant on a small number of yards for both commercial and military vessel construction.
Key Details
The contract structure spreads work across several locations, weighted heavily toward the upper Midwest. Marinette, Wisconsin will handle 65 percent of the work, followed by Houma, Louisiana at 16 percent, Jacksonville, Florida at 9 percent, and other unspecified locations making up the remaining 10 percent. Marinette is home to Fincantieri Marinette Marine, and Houma is home to Bollinger Shipyards. The Navy publicly directed the incoming construction manager to use those two yards for the initial round of LSM construction, with Fincantieri building four ships and Bollinger building the lead ship, according to a February 2026 USNI News report on the Navy's shipyard selection. That report also noted the construction manager would have discretion over how to award the remaining ships authorized under the base contract, which lines up with the 10 percent of work-share left unassigned to a named location in this week's contract notice. The same USNI News report noted that the fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, signed in December, permits the Navy to use a vessel construction manager for the first eight LSMs, along with future light replenishment oilers and other auxiliary ships, giving the Navy legal cover to run additional programs the same way.
The Navy expects the base contract to be complete by June 2030, with contract options, if exercised, extending performance through September 2031. Funding for the award comes from two fiscal years: $1,933,941,000, or 88 percent, from fiscal 2025 Navy shipbuilding and conversion funds, and $272,059,000, or 12 percent, from fiscal 2026 Navy shipbuilding and conversion funds. Both tranches were obligated at the time of award and do not expire at the end of the current fiscal year, giving the Navy multi-year flexibility to execute the program without a use-it-or-lose-it deadline.
The contract was competitively procured through the System for Award Management website, though the Navy received only a single offer. Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington, D.C. is the contracting activity, and the award carries the contract number N00024-26-C-2421.
What It Means for Contractors
For shipyards outside Marinette and Houma, this award still leaves a narrow door open rather than closing it. TOTE Services now holds the authority to manage subcontracts for up to eight hulls, and while two of those yards were already directed by the Navy before this contract was awarded, the construction manager retains discretion over how to award the remaining ships authorized under the base contract. Firms hoping to compete for that remaining work, or for the 10 percent work-share bucket the notice lists only as "other locations," should watch for solicitations from TOTE Services directly rather than from NAVSEA, since the prime-level competition the Navy just settled does not extend to the fabrication tier.
The single-offer outcome on a contract of this size is also worth contractors' attention. When only one company bids on a multibillion-dollar Navy program, it typically signals either a narrow qualified vendor pool for this type of construction-management role or a scope tailored closely to one firm's existing capabilities. Companies that believe they could compete for future tranches of LSM-related work, or for similar construction-management arrangements on other shipbuilding programs, may want to engage NAVSEA early about upcoming opportunities rather than waiting for a solicitation to post.
The explicit linkage to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act funding is a signal in itself. The Navy is now citing that law by name in individual contract announcements, which suggests the shipbuilding accounts it created are actively flowing into specific programs rather than sitting unobligated. Contractors tracking Navy shipbuilding money should expect more awards referencing the same funding source in the coming months, particularly for amphibious and connector-ship programs that support the broader push to grow fleet numbers. Firms with capacity in Gulf Coast and Great Lakes shipyards, in particular, may see increased subcontracting activity tied to this and similar awards as the Navy works to spread LSM construction across multiple facilities rather than concentrating it in a single yard.
