From the article—-

Plans call for building up to 10 Ford-class carriers over the next four decades, at a projected future cost of $22 billion each, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and the Navy’s most recent shipbuilding plan.


Relocating the island would be “a major redesign,” said Bryan Clark, a former Navy officer who studies the service at the Hudson Institute, a right-leaning think tank in Washington. Such an alteration to the carrier’s layout, he said, would affect the ship’s buoyancy and weight and come at a significant cost.
“You could change it,” he added, “but it’s very disruptive.”