The forward section of a Virginia-class submarine awaits completion at Electric Boat Co.'s Groton shipyard in this undated photo. File photo

Could the already-hot New London-area housing market get even more demand from an expanding Electric Boat Co. shipyard?

That’s a definite possibility following the announcement Monday that Australia will purchase five U.S.-manufactured, nuclear-powered attack submarines to modernize its fleet.

The Virginia-class submarines are made at Electric Boat’s Groton shipyard and Huntington Ingalls Shipbuilding’s yard in Newport News, Virginia.

The purchase agreement for up to five Virginia-class submarines was announced Monday when President Joe Biden, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak met in San Diego for talks on the 18-month-old nuclear partnership known by the acronym AUKUS.

The AUKUS agreement, announced in 2021, paved the way for Australia to get access to nuclear-powered submarines, which are stealthier and more capable than conventionally powered boats.

Albanese said the agreement “represents the biggest single investment in Australia’s defense capability in all of our history.” It’s also the first time in 65 years that the U.S. has shared its nuclear propulsion technology, ”and we thank you for it,” he said.

The five Australian submarines add to the U.S. Navy’s own prodigious orders for the same type and for new Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines.

The two programs have prompted Electric Boat to embark on a decade-long hiring spree that will bring 18,000 new staff members through its doors by 2030 to expand production and to replace older workers who plan to retire over the next 10 years. These new workers have driven up demand for homes and apartments around the area enough that some Electric Boat executives have raised the possibility that it could commission apartment buildings of its own if private development can’t meet the need for more housing.

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.