Hampton Roads & Military Housing
Hampton Roads is also a chief rendezvous of the United States Navy. The Hampton Roads area, including Norfolk VA, Suffolk VA, and Portsmouth VA, has the largest concentration of military bases and facilities of any metropolitan area in the world and I am proud to serve the Norfolk, Suffolk, and Portsmouth VA real estate needs of our military's men and women. The area is home to the Allied Command Transformation, which is the only major military command of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). Langley Air Force Base is home to Air Combat Command (ACC). The Norfolk Navy Base is located at Sewell's Point near the mouth, on the site used for the tercentennial Jamestown Exposition in 1907. For a width of 500 feet the Federal government during 1902 through 1905 increased its minimum depth at low water from 25.5 feet to 30 feet, and the channel has now been dredged to a depth of 55 feet in some places.
Langley Air Force Base is among the oldest continuously active air bases in the United States. In 1916, the National Advisory Council for Aeronautics (NACA), predecessor to NASA, established the need for a joint airfield and proving ground for Army, Navy and NACA aircraft. NACA determined that the site must be near water for over-water flying, be flat and relatively clear for expansion and the landing and take-off of aircraft and near an Army post. Fifteen locations were scouted before the site near Hampton was selected. In 1917, the new proving ground was designated Langley Field.The Norfolk Naval Shipyard, often called the Norfolk Navy Yard, is a U.S. Navy facility in Portsmouth, Virginia, for building, remodeling, and repairing the Navy's ships. It's the oldest and largest industrial facility that belongs to the U.S. Navy, and it's also the most multifaceted. Located on the Elizabeth River, the yard is just a short distance upriver from its mouth at Hampton Roads. The name was changed from Gosport Shipyard in 1862.
No major expansion occurred at the facility until World War I when it was expanded to accommodate 11,000 employees and their families. The shipyard was again expanded in World War II, doubling its physical size, and greatly expanding its productive capacity. During its peak, from 1940 to 1945, 43,000 personnel were employed and 6,850 vessels were built.After World War II, the shipyard shifted from being a ship construction facility to an overhaul and repair facility. Its last two ships, USS Bold and her sister ship, Bulwark, wooden minesweepers, were christened on March 28, 1953 during the Korean War.
Currently, the shipyard is composed of several noncontiguous areas totaling 1,275 acres (5.2 km²). Norfolk Naval Shipyard provides repair and modernization services for every type of ship that the U.S. Navy has in service, which includes amphibious vessels, submarines, guided missile cruisers, and supercarriers, although in recent years the shipyard has primarily focused on nuclear ships and nuclear support ships. The Norfolk yard is one of the few facilities on the east coast capable of dry docking nuclear aircraft carriers. Another facility capable of drydocking such carriers is Northrop Grumman Newport News, located on the other side of Hampton Roads in Newport News, which is the only U.S. shipyard that currently builds and refuels nuclear aircraft carriers.