Four Groups Vie For $220M AFB Office Project

The bidders are Detroit-based Walbridge Aldinger Co., Chicago-based Clark Construction Group, Cincinnati-based Monarch Construction Co. and a venture between Chicago-based Archer Western (a division of the Walsh Group) and locally-based Butt Construction. Butt already is working on a $13 million contract to provide infrastructure to the site. A $40 million Sensors Directorate addition is also being built nearby.

Tom Dickert, a contract specialist with the US Army Corps of Engineers, tells GlobeSt.com that the companies' final bid proposals are due March 4, after a deadline was extended. "We should be able to get to award the contract by mid-April, then there's going to be designing to do," Dickert says. Construction could start within three to six months, he says. By law, the project must be complete by Sept. 15, 2011.

The consolidation is due to various military departments being closed through the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC), and includes the US Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine, the Air Force Institute of Operational Health and the 311th Human Systems Wing's Performance Enhancement Directorate, all coming from Brooks City-Base, TX. Another department that will locate to the new complex is the Naval Aerospace Medical Research Laboratory, moving from Pensacola Naval Air Station in Florida.

The complex is to include two major facilities: one three-story, 200,000-sf facility north of Fifth Street containing a high-bay area, industrial space, dry laboratory and space for a dynamic flight simulator and hypobaric chambers; and a 450,000-sf, four-story building for the Aerospace School of Medicine, medical clinic space, administration, and dry and wet laboratories. "The HPW will perform research, teaching and consultation in a 'university model' environment," said an Air Force spokesman in a statement.

It's believed that the project will open up many new jobs for Dayton-residents. "History suggests that many of the scientists and engineers from the closing and realigned locations likely will not make the transition to Ohio, presenting a challenge to the Air Force Research Laboratory but a significant opportunity for future scientist, engineer and staff positions," the spokesman said in the statement.