Fort Lee BRAC

Support for the soldiers┬áAs part of the BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure) program, Fort Lee Garrison and the Corps of Engineers had six years to create more than 7 million square feet of new facilities. John OÔÇÖHanlon asks Bill Robson how this seeming miracle is being performed. November 2005 may seem a long time ago, but when you see the progress made since Congress approved the BRAC CommissionÔÇÖs plans for a thorough overhaul of the nationÔÇÖs military infrastructure, the three years compress dramatically.  The changes will deliver huge savings and efficiencies right across the Department of Defense. It will be a blow for the communities where a base is closed or downsized, but a huge boost for employment and the entire supply chain where expansion takes place.Nowhere is that more true than in the Tri-Cities area of Virginia, where Fort Lee is situated. Already one of the countryÔÇÖs largest training and administration facilities, the number of personnel there, including students, will effectively double in size by September 2011 when BRAC-related projects are complete.Unlike any local civilian construction project, the BRAC program is a series of dominoes that have to fall in sequence before the final one drops on that day. For example, the Ordnance Center and School currently located on two installations, Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG) in Maryland and Redstone Arsenal in Alabama, will move to a new facility at Fort Lee while additional facilities are constructed at APG to house the electronic communications people from Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, which will close. This means that a delay in finishing the sequenced projects at Fort Lee is not an option.Leading the team that controls the dominoes within Fort Lee is BRAC Area Engineer Bill Robson. He works for the construction arm of the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Norfolk District. These are exciting times for the Army, he says. ÔÇ£There is great satisfaction in building something that I can visit when IÔÇÖm retired and say I was involved in the largest construction program recently executed at Fort Lee. I know my whole staff is very excited to be a part of this BRAC program.ÔÇØNevertheless, the responsibility for this $1.2 billion program is awesome, and it is reassuring to know it is in the hands of someone with 33 years of Army construction experience. ÔÇ£Our primary mission is to give the soldiers the facilities they need to train and be prepared for whatever comes up in their mission,ÔÇØ Robson declares. The facilities and the base housing (separately contracted as part of the ArmyÔÇÖs Residential Communities Initiative) are vital to the physical support environment for soldiers and their families.USACE has already awarded over half the projects, totaling more than $700 million, since June 2007. Large public programs have a habit of making cost estimates look fictional, especially when raw materials are as volatile as now. That hasnÔÇÖt been allowed to happen at Fort Lee. Of course, the decline in commercial construction has reduced the number of games in town, and that has made the contractors sharpen their pencils as Robson puts it. But keeping costs under control is more a question of good management, he insists. ÔÇ£As a contract is awarded, my staff and I do all we can to limit the number of change orders so that we donÔÇÖt grow the cost. One tool that helps us is the design-build process.ÔÇØ Design-build puts the onus on the contractor to work to broad parameters rather than detailed plans from USACE. That way detailed changes to the plan are the responsibility of the contractor. Specification changes are discouraged, Robson continues. ÔÇ£The Department of the Army has established a strict approval process for any user-requested change, and until that is approved I just continue as normal. These changes are often disallowed, and I canÔÇÖt afford to lose time on the contract.ÔÇØMissing the schedule would have huge cost implications, but the main driver for keeping it is the ArmyÔÇÖs need to maintain uninterrupted operations in all its departments. The first project awarded in 2007 was to clear and level the ground to make the area ready for the infrastructure to support the training and leisure facilities, PX and clinics on the site. The first new building is the Sustainment Center of Excellence (SCoE), a multifunctional center where all logistics, human resources and finance training for the Army will take place. One of the major components of the SCoE is the Combined Arms Support Command (CASCOM) headquarters, a world-class training and combat development organization. The project is being constructed by Tompkins Builders, Inc., with the SCoE ribbon-cutting ceremony scheduled for January 9, 2009.Following that will be the new Army Logistics University, a $110 million project awarded to Balfour Beatty and due to be handed over on April 22, 2009. The Tactical Support Equipment Department being built by Hensel Phelps is a $47 million project that will provide facilities for equipment maintenance. The facility will accommodate approximately 750 students and 115 staff and is due for handover on April 25, 2009. ThatÔÇÖs followed on May 30, 2009, by the Vehicle Recovery Training Complex, which is being built by Purcell Construction Corporation. This project is a complex of classrooms, labs and field environments for vehicle recovery training. The Soldier Support Center (SSC) provides service support to incoming and outgoing military personnel, civil service employees, retirees and family members. The design-build contract for SSC was awarded to Rocky Hill Construction and is scheduled to be complete on June 5, 2009. Several smaller projects are ongoing and make up the remainder of the initial $700 million. So how will they monitor this complex schedule? ÔÇ£One of the key things the Norfolk District Corps of Engineers decided to do was hire an independent firm to assist my staff with review of contractor schedules.ÔÇØ This job was given to MOCA Systems of Massachusetts, a project and construction management firm that provides a specialized project control service based on a technology platform called MOCABuild. ÔÇ£They review the initial baseline schedule, the monthly updates, provide a report to us, and let us know whether the contract is staying on schedule. If a contractorÔÇÖs schedule slips, a letter is sent reminding him of the importance of the completion date and asking him what he is going to do to regain the schedule.ÔÇØThe BRAC CommissionÔÇÖs huge remit to close 12 major installations and close or realign hundreds of small installations, including Army Reserve and National Guard facilities, has to complete by September 15, 2011. Fort Lee, the largest component in this task, will not just be ready on that dateÔÇöit will have continued to provide training and support to the Army throughout the BRAC buildup at Fort Lee from 2007 through September 2011.┬á