Top firms land new infrastructure, government deals

The country’s major construction companies have been busy over the past six months with new contracts for projects. These big-ticket contracts and large-scale infrastructure projects include work for NASA, the Navy and the Department of Energy.

Here, Construction Dive takes a closer look at the scope, duration and budget of the top project contracts awarded to AEC companies since last fall— each involving budgets of $200 million or more.

AECOM

In late September, global design and engineering firm AECOM was tapped to deliver architectural and engineering services for the Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida, as well as other NASA operational hubs. The multiple-award contract continues a relationship that extends back more than a half-century and is for indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity, with a program ceiling of $300 million for a five-year run.

The project scope calls for AECOM to rehabilitate, modernize and develop new systems for facilities, utilities and ground support at a number of high-profile NASA locations across the U.S. These facilities include:

• The Kennedy Space Center.
• The Ellington Field and Sonny Carter Training Facility at Texas’s Johnson Space Center.
• New Mexico’s White Sands Test Facility.
• Alabama’s Marshall Space Flight Center.
• Louisiana’s Michoud Assembly Facility.
• Mississippi’s Stennis Space Center.

AECOM is contracted to deliver a broad array of architecture, civil, structural, mechanical and electrical infrastructure services in all phases — including planning and feasibility, permitting, preliminary engineering, final design, engineering services during construction, activation and commissioning. Services will include field investigation and surveys, engineering and environmental reports, trade studies, design specifications, construction site inspections, scheduling and cost estimating.

Balfour Beatty

The Caltrain Electrification Project — which addresses the upgrade and electrification of Caltrain’s commuter rail service through San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties — will have its scope of work and project schedule modified as part of a $347 million contract amendment agreement with Balfour Beatty and the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board announced in December. The joint commitment to complete the project (shown above) by September 2024 was solidified through this agreement.

The $347 million agreement, which is exclusive to the construction scope of work, is the result of a partnership between Balfour Beatty and other project stakeholders to ascertain the most efficient and cost-effective ways to deliver Caltrain’s 25kv AC overhead catenary system. The initiative’s goal is to create a more sustainable rail service and will replace aging diesel trains with high-performance electric ones, which will use the OCS as a power source. The OCS will also boost commuter rail service to six trains per peak hour per direction at up to 79 mph train operating speeds.

The project will focus on electrifying the rail corridor between Caltrain’s San Francisco Station and its Tamien Station in San Jose. The Balfour Beatty design-build team will electrify the remaining Caltrain corridor sections by continuing to work along 52 miles of dual-track alignment. Construction activities will include testing soil conditions, pinpointing underground utilities, inspecting signal and communication equipment, pruning and removing trees and handling foundation installation.

Fluor

Fluor Marine Propulsion, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fluor Corp., had its existing United States Department of the Navy contract extended through fiscal year 2022. The one-year, cost-plus-fixed-fee option is valued at $1.16 billion. The November announcement centered on a contract for Naval Reactors, a joint program overseen by the DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration and the Department of the Navy. Naval Nuclear Propulsion work is included in the contract. The work will take place at New York, Pennsylvania and Idaho Navy Nuclear Laboratory sites.

In addition, a team including Fluor won an environmental management contract in October for the DOE’s Savannah River project, a 310-square-mile site bordering the Savannah River that encompasses parts of Aiken, Barnwell and Allendale counties in South Carolina.

Savannah River Mission Completion is a joint venture led by a subsidiary of BWX Technologies and involving Fluor and Amentum; it was selected to execute the SRS Integrated Mission Completion Contract.

Liquid waste stabilization and disposal are among the projects within the contract’s scope of work involving large-scale cleanup.

Over a 10-year ordering period of performance, the single indefinite-delivery and indefinite-quantity contract is valued at up to $21 billion.

Turner

In September, it was reported that a joint venture of Turner Construction Co. along with design and architectural firms AC Martin and HGA — known as Turner+AC Martin+HGA Design-Build — were awarded a $380 million design-build project for the California Department of General Services.

The project involves a complete teardown of the 17-story, 657,000-square-foot Resources Building in downtown Sacramento. By the spring of 2025, the Resources Building is anticipated to provide office space for approximately 2,500 staff from a variety of California State departments and workplaces. They include Labor and Workforce Development headquarters, the Employment Development Department and onsite DGS Facilities Management Division.

WSP

WSP USA has served as a general engineering consultant for the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority since 2017. Now, by inking in January a new five-year contract as the authority’s required consulting engineer, it has been selected to continue leading digital design delivery for Illinois Tollway through 2026. Operating five toll roads in 12 northern Illinois counties, the authority links inland ports, seven interstates, three international airports and the second largest network of rail lines in the U.S.

In that capacity, it will support Move Illinois: The Illinois Tollway Driving the Future program — a 15-year, $14 billion undertaking intended to ensure the system is in good condition and maintain the authority’s standing as a leader in transportation and tolling design and construction.

WSP USA supports Illinois Tollway’s mission by developing systems such as a breakthrough constant-slope barrier system that elevates safety standards, new temporary concrete barriers and other significant highway and tolling design enhancements. WSP also designed and crash-tested a barrier-mounted noise-abatement wall that meets test-level 5 criteria of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials’ “Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware.”

Illinois Tollway was the first U.S. transportation agency to offer to motorists, roadside workers and first responders this critical safety benefit, which provides wider and safer shoulder space for disabled vehicles, reduces rollover accident risk and shortens accident cleanup time.

WSP, with fellow global engineering and design companies Stantec and Moffatt & Nichol, is also part of the WSM Pacific SIOP Joint Venture, which was selected in September to lead multidiscipline architect-engineer services for Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command Pacific. The services will be part of a five-year, $500-million single-award indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract.

The work will directly support the Navy’s Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program, a comprehensive effort to upgrade and improve facilities at the four remaining active shipyards operated by the U.S. Navy. The upgrades will support fleet maintenance and modernization, ultimately reinforcing the Navy’s combat readiness.