The Department of Energy is preparing to solicit bids for a new three-story office building at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Albuquerque Complex on Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, according to a procurement note released last week.
The semiautonomous nuclear agency expects to release plans for the new building around Nov. 17. Proposals would be due around Jan. 2, according to a presolicitation notice posted online Thursday. The 330,000-square-foot building will provide new workspace for about 1,200 employees who currently work in aging facilities that date to the Manhattan Project.
According to the presolicitation notice, the new facility will cost somewhere between $100 million and $250 million. The Albuquerque Complex houses mostly administration personnel and is part of NNSA headquarters.
In its fiscal 2018 budget request, the Department of Energy requested $98 million for “construction for a new facility for about 1,100 federal staff in Albuquerque who currently work in inadequate facilities built in the 1940s and 1950s.”
A 2018 spending bill approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee in July would provide the $98 million the Trump administration requested, but a DOE spending bill approved by the full House in July would provide only $18 million.
“None of the project funds may be available for construction until the NNSA can provide a design for new office space that will meet program mandates to reduce the footprint and achieve operating savings,” House appropriators wrote in a report amended to their version of the DOE budget.
Meanwhile, the Senate’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2018, if signed into law, would authorize Congress to appropriate as much as $175 million in 2018 alone to upgrade the Albuquerque Complex. The House’s version of the 2018 defense authorization bill would authorize up to $98 million.
The House and Senate are now reconciling their different versions of the 2018 NDAA.
Like the rest of the federal government, the NNSA is funded at 2017 levels through Dec. 8 under a stopgap spending bill known as a continuing resolution. Congress passes such bills to avert a government shutdown when they cannot pass annual appropriations bills by Sept. 30.
