McCarthy HITT JV ReportsSurpassing Small Businessand Minority Labor ForceGoals for Next NGA West
The Next NGA West facility being built on a 97-acre site at Jefferson and Cass avenues in North St. Louis, will replace the current NGA facility located South of downtown.
McCarthy HITT, the joint venture design-build team for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s (NGA) new $1.7 billion it has surpassed its small business subcontracting goal of 28 percent of all subcontracted dollars. More than $150-million ($151,834,741) of approximately $536-million has been awarded to subcontractors that qualify as federal small businesses.
In addition, the project labor force currently exceeds the Federal requirement of 14.7 percent minority workers, with over 18 percent minority workers through mid-September. Female trade workers currently make up approximately 5.7 percent of Next NGA West’s construction workforce.
Our Commitment to an Equitably Design-Build Process
“McCarthy HITT has worked diligently to achieve these numbers considering labor shortages affecting the entire construction industry that have made hiring a national challenge, particularly for women,” said Heather Cirre, small business contracting and outreach for McCarthy Building Companies.
According to Cirre, a key component of the recruiting efforts is supporting pre-apprenticeship programs such as Building Union Diversity (BUD) and MOKAN, which recruits diverse candidates from the St. Louis area for jobs in the construction trades. In addition, the McCarthy HITT team has reached out through various databases and sources to nearly 5,000 small, minority, women-owned and veteran-owned businesses, providing a level field of the same opportunities to access requirements, attend opportunity fairs and pre-bid events, and detailed contact information and contacts for additional information.
The Next NGA West Facility Takes Shape
The Next NGA West facility being built on a 97-acre site at Jefferson and Cass avenues in North St. Louis, will replace the current NGA facility located South of downtown. The new campus will include a new 700,000-square-foot main office building, two parking garages, a visitor center, delivery inspection facility and a central utility plant. The Kansas City District, US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is responsible for managing the design, construction and delivery of the facilities.
While the majority of work scopes on the main project contract have been awarded, prime subcontractors are continuing to engage small, minority-owned, and women-owned businesses as next-tier subcontractors.
Additional set-aside bid packages for small businesses will be solicited directly by USACE, including a remote inspection facility (RIF), access control points (ACP), visitor center parking lot, and landscaping for the 97-acre site. Sources currently are being sought for the RIF and ACP, and the award decisions are anticipated in Spring/Summer 2022. (A copy of the RIF and ACP are available on request.)
Ground was broken for Next NGA West in November 2019 and the current phase of construction is expected to last through the end of November 2021 with the next phase focused on the main office building enclosure. Construction completion is estimated in 2024 and the campus is expected to be operational in 2025.
About the McCarthy HITT team
Led by St. Louis-based McCarthy Building Companies, Inc., the McCarthy HITT team is responsible for supporting the mission critical needs of USACE and the NGA. McCarthy HITT is a joint venture of the nation’s most capable design-build/operations and maintenance firms. The team includes HITT Contracting, Falls Church, Va.; Black & Veatch Special Projects Corp., Overland Park, Kan.; Gensler, Washington, DC; and Akima, LLC, Herndon, Va. The Black & Veatch + Gensler Joint Venture serves as the Architect-Engineer of Record for the project. More information is available at www.mccarthyhittnga.com
