GSA Awards $524M Contract For St. Elizabeths Project
The General Services Administration has awarded Clark Construction a more than half-billion-dollar contract to build the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s new headquarters at the St. Elizabeths campus in Southeast D.C.
The award totals $524M, including $115.9M from the Inflation Reduction Act, the GSA announced Monday. That sum is the largest for any single project to date from the bill, according to the announcement.
“The construction of this headquarters underscores the government's commitment to safeguarding the nation's cyber landscape while also maintaining the rich history of the St. Elizabeths Campus and revitalizing the surrounding community,” GSA Public Buildings Service Commissioner Elliot Doomes said in a release.
The new headquarters facility is slated to total 630K SF.
Clark Construction is the largest general contractor in the D.C. region, bringing in nearly $3.3B in revenue in the metro area last year, according to the Washington Business Journal. The firm has completed more than 145 government projects totaling more than 51M SF in the past decade, according to its website.
CISA is one of multiple Department of Homeland Security agencies relocating to the massive redevelopment of St. Elizabeths Hospital in Ward 8. DHS is taking the west side of the campus, planned for 4.1M SF over 176 acres.
A year ago, the GSA announced that $288M of Inflation Reduction Act funding would be allocated to the three of six projects left to construct at the DHS campus: headquarters buildings for CISA and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, as well as a garage and gatehouse on the property.
Of the $115.9M in Inflation Reduction Act funding going toward CISA's headquarters, $80M is allocated to purchase low-embodied-carbon construction materials like asphalt, concrete, glass and steel. Another $35M is being deployed to meet high-performance green building standards. The new headquarters is projected to use 72% less energy per square foot per year than typical office buildings.
“St. Elizabeths is a place where thousands of dedicated public servants work to keep America safe and explore new technologies, and this project will support those goals, all while reducing our environmental impact, saving taxpayer dollars through energy efficiency, and creating jobs in the community,” GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan said in the release.
The Biden administration’s $740B Inflation Reduction Act includes $3.4B in GSA funding meant to enable the GSA to promote the development and manufacturing of low-embodied-carbon construction materials and make federal facilities more sustainable and cost-efficient, the release says.
CISA’s headquarters was designed by ZGF Architects and Olin Studio, the master architects of St. Elizabeths West, which has been under development since 2009. Construction of CISA's headquarters is set to begin this fall, a GSA spokesperson told Bisnow.
St. Elizabeths West is only part of the vision for the new neighborhood across 359 acres in Congress Heights. Development of St. Elizabeths East, a 183-acre property divided into 18 parcels, has been awarded by the D.C. government to a variety of developers, including Redbrick LMD, Neighborhood Development Co. and the Menkiti Group, for a mix of hotel, retail, entertainment, office, residential and healthcare facilities.
UPDATE, AUG. 19, 4:30 P.M. ET: This article has been updated to include the estimated construction start.
