Clark/Balfour Beatty Receives Multiple High Honors at Associated General Contractors of America’s 93rd Annual Convention

Dallas, TX, March 18, 2012 --(PR.com)-- The joint venture team of Clark/Balfour Beatty received high honors on two projects at the Associated General Contractors of America’s (AGC) 93rd Annual Convention this week. The national industry association honored the NGA Campus East project at Fort Belvoir, Va. with a prestigious Marvin M. Black Excellence in Partnering Award, and with an Alliant Build America Award. The association also honored the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. with an Alliant Build America Merit Award.

NGA Campus East
The Alliant Build America Awards recognizes the nation’s most significant construction projects of 2011. The NGA Campus East project is the single largest USACE military construction project since the Pentagon in 1943. Construction included a 2.2 million-square-foot office building, a 150,000-square-foot technology center, a 95,000-square-foot central utility plant, a 5,100-space parking garage and a site package that included significant roads and bridges. NGA Campus East achieved LEED Gold certification.

Being awarded the Marvin M. Black Excellence in Partnering Award also recognized this project as one the nation’s most successful construction project partnerships in 2011. The collaborative approach on the NGA Campus East project aligned 10 partners under “One Team” to accomplish a common goal: ensuring national security through fast-track, phased delivery of the $1.4 billion, 2.4-million-square-foot headquarters for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). The project team included Clark/Balfour Beatty, the construction joint venture, NGA, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and RTKL/KlingStubbins, the design joint venture.

"The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is honored to have partnered with an exceptional team in receiving this prestigious award. All of this could not be possible without the tireless efforts of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the outstanding team of contractors and their spectacular program management teams. We are proud to be the benefactors of the NGA Campus East facility. It is truly a hallmark of design, construction and functionality," said Mike Rodrigue, former NGA Program Management Office Director.

“Leadership on the project was phenomenal,” said John Tarpey, Regional CEO for Balfour Beatty Construction and program board member on NGA Campus East. “NGA and the USACE provided a clear and compelling vision of what needed to be accomplished. Through the partnering process we formed a powerful coalition, communicated a sense of urgency and ownership with all stakeholders, and quickly removed any obstacles to the goals we established.”

NGA Campus East was a USACE pilot project for early contractor involvement delivery. Partnering was established early on and was an integral part of the three-tiered project leadership structure in which partnering meetings with key stakeholders were held weekly, twice-monthly and monthly. John Grinnell, president and CEO of Grinnell Leadership, facilitated much of the partnering process and said, “With the strong ‘One Team’ leadership and the understanding that projects move at the speed of openness and trust – the challenges of partnering were made easier.”

Meeting the Congressionally-mandated BRAC deadline required extensive overlapping of normally sequential activities, with construction starting 18 months before design completion and NGA end users deploying into the main office building three months before substantial construction completion. Working closely with all stakeholders the team completed construction six months ahead of schedule and on-budget while working a stretch of more than two million man-hours with no lost-time injuries and maintaining full NGA operations throughout.

“We all understood that to achieve the mission, every member of the team had to do his or her job well and that no one group’s efforts alone were sufficient to ensure ultimate project success. This was the essence of the ‘One Team’,” said Keith Couch, a Clark Construction senior vice president and executive leadership team member of NGA Campus East. “We saw leaders emerge at every level of every organization, people who were absolutely committed to ‘One Team’ and to completing the mission in a highly collaborative way.”

NGA Campus East Partners: National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency – owner, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – client, Clark/Balfour Beatty – construction joint venture, RTKL/KlingStubbins –design joint venture, General Dynamics Information Technology – information technology contractor, M.C. Dean – security contractor, Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Atlantic – security contracting entity, Fort Belvoir Garrison – host installation, SRA International – deployment contractor, and Parsons – base operations contractor.

Walter Reed National Military Medical Center
The Walter Reed National Military Medical Center received an Alliant Build America Merit Award in the Design-Build category. The Clark/Balfour Beatty joint venture expanded and renovated the National Naval Medical Center to what is now a state-of-the-art hospital and flagship medical institution for all military branches. The $826 million project is the largest U.S. design-build hospital project to date and forms the U.S. military’s largest medical center. The project included over 725,000 square feet of new construction, which was completed six weeks ahead of schedule and 450,000 square feet of renovations, which was completed while maintaining full hospital operations. Walter Reed also achieved LEED Gold certification for new work.

Walter Reed National Military Medical Center Partners: NAVFAC Washington – client, Clark/Balfour Beatty – construction joint venture and design-build lead, HKS – architect/design partner, Wingler & Sharp – architect, HOK – architect, Dewberry – civil engineer, Cagley & Associates – structural engineer, M.C. Dean – electrical design-build subcontractor, Southland Industries – mechanical design-build subcontractor.