The Air Force awards a three-firm JV a 10-year contract as a preferred vendor

The U.S. Armed Forces are perennially significant spenders on construction and renovation. In its fiscal year 2021, the military branches were authorized by Congress to spend $7.8 billion for construction projects that included security and military housing, along with infrastructure, according to the Comptroller of the Department of Defense. Bagging a piece of that spending can be a bonanza for AEC firms, many of which have practices whose design, engineering, and construction services target government-funded work.

Case in point: The Air Force Civil Engineer Center and the 772nd Enterprise Sourcing Squadron have awarded a 10-year, $2 billion contract to a joint venture comprised of LEO A DALY, Arcadis, and EXP Federal for architecture, engineering, and other services in support of the Department of the Air Force’s missions worldwide.

The so-called AE NEXT 2021 Pool 4 contract, which is indefinite-delivery and -quantity, chose this JV team and 16 other contract winners as preferred vendors to execute design and construction projects for the Air Force and Space Force. The scope of that contract includes the design of new infrastructure and facilities, and the renovation, restoration, and modernization of existing infrastructure and facilities.

MILITARY WORK ‘NOBLE’ AND ‘A RESPONSIBILITY’

The Arden Hills Readiness Center in Minnesota is one of LEO A DALY's recent military-funded projects.

LEO A DALY is the JV team’s managing partner. Arcadis—which employs 27,000 people in 70 countries—will contribute design services under this contract. And EXP Federal will provide secure technical, engineering, and mission support services.

Each of these firms has a long history of working with the military. EXP Federal has successfully completed projects for the DoD over the past 25 years, according to its website. In late 2019, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers selected Arcadis to provide construction design, industrial assessments, and environmental engineering for the update of Watervliet Arsenal in New York and other North Atlantic Division installations.

Military-funded projects accounted for just under $32 million in billings for LEO A DALY in 2019 and 2020 combined. Those projects include the recently constructed 149,735-sf Arden Hills Readiness Center, which the Minnesota Army National Guard 34th Infantry Division uses for training exercises. (Stahl Construction was the GC.) LEO A DALY also has been working as historic treatment specialist for general contractor JE Dunn on the restoration of the U.S. Air Force Academy Cadet Chapel. That project’s architecture and engineering team includes the Air Force Civil Engineering Center, AECOM, Wiss Janney Elstner Associates, and Hartman-Cox Architects.

LEO A DALY provided architectural, engineering, and interior design services for the 160,000-sf VA Ambulatory Care Center that opened in Omaha, Neb., last August. Over the past two calendar years its work for the Veterans Administration brought in more than $35 million in billings.

“Federal work is noble work,” says Mike Huffsteller, Assoc. AIA, Corporate Director of Federal Programs and LEO A DALY. “Everything we do connects us in some way with the warfighter, the veteran, or those who serve of have served on the front lines of our nation.” Chris Koehler, Arcadis’ sales enablement director, frames working with the Air Force as “our responsibility as a firm with experience ensuring resilient outcomes for commercial and federal clients alike.”