Photo By James Kimber | COMMANDER, FLEET ACTIVITIES YOKOSUKA, Japan (March 25, 2025) - Sailors and base...... read more read more
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FLEET ACTIVITIES YOKOSUKA, Japan – A large-scale, $1.3 million renovation project to Commander, Fleet Activities Yokosuka’s Unaccompanied Housing (CFAY UH) is well underway.
UH provides housing for shore-based single Sailors from paygrades E1 to E4, as well as shipboard servicemembers of the same paygrades under the Homeport Ashore Program, or HPA.
Work began in late January to remove the carpet in Building 3333 and replace it with a tiled floor. The eight-floor, 402-room, 804-bed facility is directly across the street from the Yokosuka Transaction Service Center, formerly known as Personnel Support Detachment, or PSD.
Esteban Abreu, the installation’s Navy Housing Director, said the carpet had reached the end of its lifecycle and the new tiled floor will give Sailors a much easier space to clean.
“The more durable tile floor won’t need to be replaced as frequently as carpet, which ultimately saves money,” Abreu said. “It’ll also make sanitizing less complicated when we need to prepare the room for a new tenant.”
Renovations began on the building’s top floor and have worked their way down every few weeks. The schedule is staggered to ensure HPA Sailors have time to move out of non-renovated rooms and into newly renovated ones.
“These upgrades improve our Sailors' lives by providing living spaces with flooring that's highly durable, resistant to stains, water, and wear,” Abreu said. “This contributes to the appearance of their living space for many years. We also remove any possibility of trapped moisture, mold, and allergens which can trigger hay fever or allergy attacks.”
The improvements to UH don’t end there.
Buildings 3333 and 3387 both have lounges and game rooms on each of their eight floors. Many of these rooms are underutilized because they no longer meet the modern needs of today’s Sailors.
“When these buildings were planned, Sailors didn’t have their own gaming consoles, smart TVs, and Wi-Fi,” Abreu said. “The lounges provided a place to watch movies, shoot pool, cook dinner – you know, it was a cool place to relax with friends.
But by the time construction of both buildings was complete, many of those plans were already outdated. Sailors had laptops and streaming services on their phones. Because of that, they were just staying in their rooms and had no real need for a game room. We needed to rethink how to better use these spaces to serve our Sailors better.”
So the UH team shifted gears.
The lounge on the first floor of Building 3333 is expected to host a new, 24-hour Navy Exchange (NEX) Micro Mart.
Jamie Bodlovic, the District Automated Business Manager for the NEX in Yokosuka, said the NEX team is currently finalizing floor plans to begin work later this year.
He’s excited to be “opening a Micro Mart at Building 3333 as it will be the first UH location for Yokosuka.”
While this is the first planned Micro Mart in a CFAY UH, several successful Micro Marts already operate in UH buildings stateside and in Bahrain. One also operates in Naval Hospital Yokosuka.
NEX Micro Marts differ from their Mini Mart counterparts. There are no employees working the register. Instead, they are a self-service, self-checkout hybrid blending vending machines and convenience stores. It’s not entirely unmanned, though.
“We will have an attendant who stocks, cleans, and maintains the location,” Bodlovic said.
Meanwhile, construction on the first floor of Building 3387 began earlier this year. Building 3387 is the newer of the twin UH complexes; Building 3333 opened in 2004 and Building 3387 in May 2014. This project converts its first-floor lounge into an unmanned, satellite CFAY Morale, Welfare, and Recreation (MWR) Single Sailor Liberty Center.
Bill Wagner, CFAY MWR Liberty Center Director, says the renovation will provide Sailors assigned to CFAY’s UH facilities a lot more than what’s found in a typical lounge.
“We have $75,000 worth of new equipment waiting for installation,” Wagner said. “We’re installing a 70-inch television, a foosball table with a clear top so it can be converted into a dining table, recliners, Xbox and PS5 consoles, dartboard, and a completely refurbished kitchen area. Not quite as many options as our full Liberty Center here [in the James D. Kelley Fleet Recreation Center], but something that’s a little closer to most of our Single Sailors.”
One addition the satellite will provide is the ability to offer regular cooking classes.
“In the past, we were limited to microwave cooking classes for safety reasons—recipes like cakes in coffee mugs,” Wagner said. “The satellite center will have a full kitchen with proper ventilation, so we will be able to offer full cooking classes there.”
The Liberty Center addition is expected to wrap up later this year.
This work is in addition to other construction and refit projects in CFAY’s UH areas.
Building 1530, the community residence for single Sailors nearest to the main NEX building, has its own $15 million renovation in progress. Major mechanical and electrical systems are receiving a complete refit in addition to bedroom doors and windows being installed in the UH complex.
These upgrades provide occupants “a better experience with controlling noise, temperature, and humidity,” said Cmdr. Tyler Sharar, CFAY’s Public Works Officer.
In February, a $4 million contract was awarded to replace exterior doors and windows in UH Buildings 1393, 1516, and 3333. Occupants here can expect this work to wrap up by the end of 2026.
“Together, these show investment to both recapitalize facility systems—such as fire protection and HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning)—while also improving the room finishes which are more visible to the occupants,” Sharar said.
| Date Taken: | 05.28.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 05.28.2025 22:57 |
| Story ID: | 499003 |
| Location: | YOKOSUKA, KANAGAWA, JP |
| Web Views: | 44 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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