NAVAL STATION EVERETT
The Navy's newest major fleet homeport — Pacific destroyers on Puget Sound.
OVERVIEW
Naval Station Everett is the U.S. Navy's newest major fleet homeport and the Pacific Northwest's principal surface combatant base, occupying a compact 130-acre site on Port Gardner Bay in Everett, Washington — about 25 miles north of Seattle on the eastern shore of Puget Sound. The station was commissioned in 1994 as the centerpiece of the Navy's "Strategic Homeporting" effort to disperse Pacific Fleet basing from its long-standing concentration around San Diego, and it remains the only major Navy fleet base built largely from new construction in the late 20th century. About 6,000 active-duty Sailors and civilian employees support the host station, plus the crews of the homeported ships.
NS Everett is the homeport for several Pacific Fleet Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers, organized administratively under Destroyer Squadron 9. The base's modern pier complex, sized specifically for surface combatants, supports the full spectrum of in-port operations — refueling, rearming, voyage repairs, and crew rotation — and is integrated with the broader Pacific Northwest naval enterprise centered on Naval Base Kitsap (submarines and the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard) and Naval Air Station Whidbey Island (electronic attack and maritime patrol). From 1997 to 2011, NS Everett also hosted the Pacific Fleet aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72), making it briefly the northernmost carrier homeport in the U.S. Navy; the carrier mission has since returned to NB Coronado.
KEY FACTS
- MissionPacific Northwest Pacific Fleet surface combatant homeport
- SettingModern, compact deepwater pier complex on Port Gardner Bay
- CompositionNewest major Navy fleet homeport — established as a permanent base in 1994
- Geographic PositionAbout 25 miles north of Seattle on the eastern shore of Puget Sound
- Homeport ClassArleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers (DDG)
HISTORY
Naval Station Everett is unique among major U.S. Navy installations in being almost entirely a product of late 20th-century policy and new construction. Through the Cold War, the U.S. Pacific Fleet's surface combatant force was concentrated around three principal homeports — San Diego, Long Beach, and Pearl Harbor — with smaller surface ship presences at Naval Station Bremerton in Washington and Naval Station Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay. By the early 1980s, the Reagan-era Navy build-up to a "600-ship Navy" projected significant growth in the surface fleet, and Navy Secretary John Lehman launched a "Strategic Homeporting" initiative to disperse the growing fleet across additional homeports along both coasts.
In 1984, Lehman's Strategic Homeporting plan identified Everett, Washington — at the time a small Puget Sound port and timber community — as the preferred site for a new Pacific Fleet surface combatant homeport. The selection reflected the city's deep, sheltered Port Gardner Bay anchorage, available waterfront land, supportive local government and labor base, and strategic location in Puget Sound away from the existing Navy concentration in southern California. Through the late 1980s the Navy acquired the site and began design and environmental review, and major construction began in the early 1990s.
Naval Station Everett was formally commissioned in 1994 as the U.S. Navy's newest major fleet homeport. The base's compact size and purpose-built pier complex, sized specifically for surface combatants, supported a rotating roster of Pacific Fleet frigates, destroyers, and cruisers from its earliest years. In 1997, USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) shifted homeport from NAS Alameda (which closed under BRAC) to NS Everett, making the small new base briefly the northernmost U.S. Navy aircraft carrier homeport. The Lincoln remained in Everett until 2011, when she shifted homeport to Norfolk for refueling and complex overhaul.
Through the 2000s and 2010s, NS Everett's identity solidified as a Pacific Fleet destroyer homeport. The transition of the Navy's surface combatant force toward the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer made Everett a natural homeport for several of the class, and the base today routinely hosts a roster of forward-deployed-ready Arleigh Burke destroyers under Destroyer Squadron 9. The base is integrated with the broader Pacific Northwest naval enterprise — Naval Base Kitsap to the southwest (submarines and Puget Sound Naval Shipyard) and Naval Air Station Whidbey Island to the north (electronic attack and maritime patrol) — and remains the centerpiece of the Navy's growing Puget Sound surface presence.
MAJOR COMMANDS & TENANT UNITS
- Naval Station Everett (host)
- Pacific Fleet surface combatants — homeport for several Arleigh Burke-class destroyers
- Destroyer Squadron 9 (DESRON 9) administrative homeport
- Naval Branch Health Clinic Everett
- Multiple tenant Navy Reserve and support commands
LOCATION & GEOGRAPHY
NOTABLE EVENTS
- 1984Strategic Homeporting PlanThen-Navy Secretary John Lehman's Strategic Homeporting plan identified Everett, Washington as the site of a new Pacific Fleet surface combatant homeport.
- 1994NS Everett CommissionedNaval Station Everett formally commissioned as the U.S. Navy's newest fleet homeport.
- 1997USS Abraham LincolnUSS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) became the first U.S. Navy aircraft carrier to homeport at Naval Station Everett, anchoring the West Coast carrier presence in Puget Sound until reassignment in 2011.