GSA Awards Construction Contract for CISA Headquarters on the St. Elizabeths West Campus

The U.S. General Services Administration and U.S. Department of Homeland Security recently selected Clark Construction to provide general construction for the new Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Headquarters at the St. Elizabeths West Campus in Washington, D.C. The CISA construction award of approximately $524 million includes an investment of $115,880,000 in Inflation Reduction Act funding, as part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s Investing in America agenda, making it GSA’s largest single IRA project investment to date.

The Biden-Harris Administration is leading by example to tackle the climate crisis through President Biden’s Federal Sustainability Plan, which establishes an ambitious path to achieve net-zero emissions from federal buildings by 2045.

The project consists of the construction of a new 630,000-square-foot federal building that will provide space to house CISA in a new sustainable state-of-the-art facility. The investment includes approximately $80 million to purchase low-embodied carbon construction materials including asphalt, concrete, glass and steel, and $35 million to meet high-performance green building standards. These investments aim to promote domestic manufacturing and clean energy industries.

The CISA headquarters design sets a new standard for the energy performance of federal buildings in the National Capital Region, with an anticipated energy use of intensity of 28.9 thousand Btu per square foot per year. That is a 72% reduction compared to typical office buildings (CBECS 2003 baseline). Additionally, the project includes sustainable design features such as chilled beams, a dedicated outside air system with energy recovery and demand-controlled ventilation, advanced lighting controls and a high-performance building envelope. Lastly, the project is anticipated to achieve LEED Gold v4 certification using the building design and construction standards set forth by the U.S. Green Building Council.

The addition of the CISA headquarters to the St. Elizabeths West campus is part of an ongoing effort to consolidate DHS in one location.

For more information about GSA’s IRA projects, visit GSA’s Inflation Reduction Act web page.