Coastal Enterprises Awarded Navy Deal Worth Up to $148.9 Million for Camp Lejeune Grounds

The Jacksonville, North Carolina, nonprofit secured a five-year sole-source contract to maintain grounds at Camp Lejeune and other Marine installations, with $29.5 million awarded for the base period.

First Published: July 31, 2026, 1:33 PM ET

JACKSONVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA — Coastal Enterprises, a Jacksonville, North Carolina, nonprofit that employs people with disabilities, received a Navy contract worth up to $148.9 million to maintain grounds at Marine Corps installations across the state, as announced on war.gov.

The firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery contract carries an initial value of $29.5 million and covers a base period plus four option years, according to war.gov. Work spans Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, Marine Corps Air Station New River and outlying areas, and runs through July 2027. The Navy procured the award as a sole source under the AbilityOne program, a federal initiative that channels government work to organizations employing people who are blind or have significant disabilities.

Coastal Enterprises performs grounds maintenance across roughly 150,000 acres with more than 200 employees, according to coastalenterprisesinc.org. Those crews cut grass and keep grounds at Camp Lejeune and the air stations, including the Beirut, Vietnam and Montford Point memorials and the flight lines at New River. The company operates as a 501(c)(3) that provides vocational evaluation, job training and placement, serving disabled residents of Onslow and neighboring counties since 1968, according to coastalenterprisesinc.org. That structure ties public spending to a workforce mission rather than to conventional profit.

Fiscal 2026 operations and maintenance funding of $11.8 million from the Marine Corps, $283,985 from the Navy and $410,029 from other accounts will fund the award, according to war.gov. Those dollars expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command, Mid-Atlantic, in Norfolk, Virginia, is the contracting activity.

Taxpayers fund the work, and the immediate winners are the disabled workers whose jobs the contract sustains. The bases gain uninterrupted upkeep of training grounds and memorials, while the single-offer, sole-source structure limits competition that might otherwise lower the price. For the average reader, the deal shows how routine base upkeep converts federal dollars into local employment. Grounds crews mow flight lines and memorial sites that host thousands of Marines and visitors, keeping installations functional without diverting active-duty personnel to landscaping.

This marks the first contract recorded for Coastal Enterprises in the database in 2026, setting the company’s benchmark within the Navy portfolio. The award ranks as the third Department of Defense contract in North Carolina during 2026 and one of 22 defense contracts issued nationwide on July 31, 2026. It sits well below the year-to-date Navy maximum of $8 billion.

Sole-source AbilityOne awards have recurred at these installations for years.Coastal Enterprises has held service contracts at Camp Lejeune, New River and Cherry Point and has manufactured aerial panel markers and more than 200,000 belt buckles annually for the armed forces, according to coastalenterprisesinc.org. Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command, Mid-Atlantic, will oversee performance and any option-year decisions. A date for exercising the first option has not been announced.

Federal set-aside work for disabled Americans traces to Depression-era policy, as happened before. Congress passed the Wagner-O’Day Act in 1938 to buy goods from workshops for the blind. Lawmakers expanded it through the Javits-Wagner-O’Day Act of 1971 to include people with severe disabilities, creating the program now called AbilityOne. That framework has funneled billions in federal contracts to nonprofits and today supports tens of thousands of disabled workers nationwide.

This contract represents the 1st contract awarded to Coastal Enterprises, in 2026, bringing the company’s total contract value for the year to $29,535,110. It is also the 3rd Department of Defense contract awarded in North Carolina during 2026. Because this is the first award to Coastal Enterprises recorded in the database, it establishes the company’s initial benchmark within the Navy portfolio. Specifically, it falls between the 2026 Navy portfolio’s year-to-date minimum of $9,046,496 and maximum of $8,000,000,000. Overall, this award was announced among 22 Department of Defense contracts issued nationwide on July 31, 2026.