Following the design-build method, GSA relied on architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LP to develop the original design concept, and the joint venture team of Daniel, Mann, Johnson & Mendenhall and Heery International Inc. to serve as construction manager. Dallas-headquartered HKS Inc. will take the preliminary design to its final version, and Whitestone, NY's Skanska will build the complex based on HKS's final designs. The team beat out three other design-build contenders for the job.

With so much space involved, construction will be conducted in two separate phases. Phase I will consist of about 770,000 sf of office space and a parking structure to accommodate as many as 1,500 vehicles. "The second phase," GSA spokesman Michael McGill tells GlobeSt.com, "is awaiting federal funding." President Bush's Fiscal Year 2004 Federal Budget proposal calls for $20 billion to go to the GSA, with $146.4 million of those funds to be directed toward the completion of the second and last stage of the Census Bureau development project.

When all is said and done, the Census Bureau will be able to consolidate in one central locale its 6,000 employees who now work at various locations on the Suitland campus, as well as at five other locations in the surrounding Prince George's County area.