Military Construction: In the Southeast, This Market is One of the Few Marching Forward

... Development Center. The team is aiming for LEED-Silver certification.

The 24,159-sq-ft center will accommodate 232 infants through 5-year-old children. Construction partner on the design-build project, Lifecycle Construction Services of Washington, D.C., began sitework in the fall and will start construction on the pre-engineered metal building in 2010.

Image: Balfour Beatty Construction

Balfour Beatty Construction is renovating the Starship Barracks at Fort Jackson, S.C., above, and is also building the Fort Benning Reception Station Barracks, below. “2010 will probably be a busier year than 2009,” says Kent Long, senior vice president with Balfour Beatty Construction in Plantation, Fla

Photo: Walton Construction Co.

Companies involved in the military construction market expect more contract opportunities during 2010, as well as increased competition from firms seeking to break into this field.

Smedley says metal buildings provided more clear span space for flexibility and speed construction.

The Corps Savannah District project is part of an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity Multiple Award Task Order Contract for Army facilities in the Southeast. The team will provide design-build services for an estimated $200 million in projects over five years. The Army requires the teams use building information modeling.

BRPH also designed and is providing construction administration services for two buildings—the 168,000-sq-ft services building and the 48,000-sq-ft Coalition-Interagency Operations Center at the U.S. Southern Command Headquarters in Doral, Fla.

Command Headquarters Hensel Phelps Construction Co. of Orlando began working on the $212-million, 630,425-sq-ft, design-build U.S. Southern Command Headquarters project, in Doral, Fla., in 2008. The tilt-wall and steel structures will provide space for about 2,883 personnel as well as support services. Completion is scheduled for September.

Clark Construction Group of Tampa is building the $61-million U.S. Central Command Headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa. During the first phase, the company will construct a four-story, 257,000-sq-ft, structural-steel frame building.

The second phase consists of demolishing the existing headquarters building and constructing a reception center and parking lot. The project began in July and completion is expected in June 2011. The new headquarters will accommodate about 1,800 personnel.

Design-Build Preferred The military continues to rely on design-build contracts.

Skanska USA Civil Southeast of Virginia Beach, Va., with design partner Clark Nexsen of Norfolk, Va., is working on a three-phase, $19-million retaining wall and $10-million beach renourishment project at the Santa Rosa Island Range Complex at Eglin Air Force Base in northwest Florida. The work entails installing sheet-pile walls around three radar sites, placing large boulders behind those walls, dredging 2 million cu yds of sand and placing 7,000 ft of beach at the east end of the island and 6,000 ft at the west end.

The initial contract called for $19 million for the sea wall and stone and $9.7 million for the dredging, but the design-build team was able to accomplish both for $19 million, freeing up $10 million for the beach restoration project.

“When the engineers work for you, you get to guide how you want to do the work better than when you have an ivory-tower design,” says Geoff Doyle, project executive with Skanska.

Balfour Beatty’s Long says about 80% of the Navy and Army projects the company pursues are design-build.

“In the last several years, more than 75% of our military projects have been design-build,” Williams adds. “That seems to be the trend the government has taken.”

Useful sources: