Northrop Grumman breaks ground on $200M Waynesboro facility

Falls Church-based Fortune 500 defense contractor Northrop Grumman broke ground Friday on its $200 million-plus facility in Waynesboro.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced the planned facility, which will hold advanced electronics manufacturing and testing, in November 2023. Northrop Grumman anticipates creating an estimated 300 jobs — varied engineering and manufacturing roles — over the next five years.

The 315,000-square-foot building will be on Shenandoah Village Drive, and Pennsylvania-based Equus Capital Partners is the project’s developer. Northrop Grumman anticipates the building will open in 2025 and be ready for production in 2026, according to a company spokesperson.

“This new facility will increase capacity to manufacture and test advanced electronics and mission solutions to meet our customers’ growing needs,” Kathy Warden, Northrop Grumman’s chair, CEO and president, said in a statement at the time of the initial announcement. “We are pleased to expand our technology presence in the commonwealth and look forward to welcoming more people to our mission-driven team.”

Northrop Grumman employs roughly 95,000 employees — 6,800 in Virginia — and reported $39.29 billion in 2023 revenue. The company ranked No. 413 on Fortune magazine’s Global 500 list for 2023, and No. 113 on its annual 1000 list of U.S. corporations for the year.