Clark Construction / Balfour Beatty: NGA East Campus Project

Knowing the earth  Keith Regan learns from the project managers representing the Clark Construction/Balfour Beatty joint venture overseeing construction how getting a sprawling, multi-faceted project done in less than four years has required a new level of teamwork.  The National Geo-Spatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) may be one of the least visible of the agencies that help protect national security, but its mission to ÔÇ£know the earth and show the wayÔÇØ makes it a key partner to other intelligence agencies and the Department of Defense. As it has grown over the years, the NGA took whatever space was available, and when the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) legislation was written in 2005, the agency was the recipient of one of the largest construction projects to create a new, consolidated home for its employees and the technology that supports them.  The $1.7 billion, four-year project will create a new 2.1-million-square-foot office tower complex and a 150,000-square-foot data center, along with 1.6 million square feet of surface and garage parking and a 100,000-square-foot central utility plant. Overseeing the massive construction project is a joint venture of Clark Construction Group and Balfour Beatty, which teamed up due to the sheer size and scope of the work, which at its peak is producing some $2 million to $3 million a day of work. The joint venture will self-perform a relatively small percentage of the work, instead relying heavily on subcontractors to perform the bulk of the activity. The new facility is rising on the former Engineer Proving Ground at Fort Belvoir in Springfield, Virginia, where the NGA already had a presence prior to the decision to consolidate. As of early 2010, some of the work was already set to be turned over to the agency, with a rolling move-in planned leading up to final turnover in the spring of 2011. When completed, the facility will consolidate a number of existing locations in Reston, Westfields and Newington, Virginia, as well as Washington DC; Bethesda, Maryland; and elsewhere on the Fort Belvoir property. According to Keith Couch, senior vice president with Clark Construction, the work began with infrastructure improvements designed to create easier access to the site from nearby highways, and to create parking and staging areas for the many various work components and a 40,000-square-foot temporary office facility to house project management teams. With just over a year to go on the target schedule, the team had turned over the technology center, the utility plant, and one-eighth of the first office tower to the agency. ÔÇ£Getting the infrastructure in place to support a 1,800-person construction operation was one of the early challenges,ÔÇØ Couch says, adding that work required coordination with numerous federal and state agencies, including the US Army Corps of Engineers, the NGA, Fairfax County and the Virginia Department of Transportation. Among the challenges facing the construction team have been the aggressive schedule and the need to perform work in a choreographed sequence, with teams of subcontractors moving among the various parts of the project when needed. ÔÇ£We started prior to the design being complete,ÔÇØ notes Mike Phillips, CouchÔÇÖs counterpart and senior vice president representing Balfour Beatty. ÔÇ£This has been a fast-tracked job right from the start.ÔÇØ The office tower work in particular lends itself to sequencing of work, with teams of contractors able to follow one another through each of the eight towers making up the central office facility, part of a campus that will include a fitness facility, a credit union and other employee amenities. The NGA was recently ranked among the top 50 placesÔÇöand one of the top five government agenciesÔÇöat which to work in the Washington DC area by Washingtonian magazine. When completed, the project will be seeking a Silver-level certification from the US Green Building CouncilÔÇÖs LEED program, with both design and construction elements contributing to the overall sustainability of the project. ÔÇ£That has gone very well,ÔÇØ says Couch. ÔÇ£WeÔÇÖre on track to meet that goal. LEED is getting to be standard practice on our projects, and the entire construction team is well versed in doing our part.ÔÇØ The joint venture was hired while design was still under way and quickly brought in key subcontractors to help bring drawings to completion. ÔÇ£There was a significant pre-construction effort that had those key subs working with the NGA, the Army Corps of Engineers and the design team to help find savings and construction improvements where possible,ÔÇØ notes Couch. Although the construction market in the Washington DC area was still relatively busy when the work began, the project was one of the first BRAC jobs to be approved for completion, helping it get ahead of a large wave of similar work on bases in and around the nationÔÇÖs capital. ÔÇ£Being a big job, it really lent itself to capturing stronger and larger subs in key areas,ÔÇØ says Phillips. To make the overall project more manageable, it was broken down into components with teams responsible for managing specific aspects of the work. ÔÇ£We tried to break it down so it was more in the range of the size of projects that we would normally encounter,ÔÇØ Couch says. Clark and Balfour Beatty are also working together in a joint venture at the new Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda. The two firms are similar in size and culture and were able to quickly work side by side. ÔÇ£Everyone got onto the same page early on,ÔÇØ Couch says. ÔÇ£We had to get right to work, and I think that helped us focus on the task at hand. ItÔÇÖs been a great team effort from top to bottom.ÔÇØ