Facility Design & Construction for the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility

Proposed Facility Details

The proposed 500,000 - 520,000 square foot National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) would provide animal testing capability needed for the licensure of the human disease vaccines, defend against high-consequence human and foreign animal diseases in livestock, and provide the essential departmental infrastructure requirements for threat characterization, forensics and detection.

The NBAF would feature the latest advances in security and technology:

• Class III gloveboxes,
• Class I or II biological safety cabinets (BSCs) in Biosafety Level (BSL) 3 labs, and
• Class III BSCs or Class I or II BSCs in combination with full-body, air-supplied, positive-pressure personnel suits in BSL-4 labs.

Personnel controls include federal background checks, required biometric testing for lab entry, and no solitary access to BSL-4 microorganisms allowed. More about proposed NBAF and biosafety levels.

The NBAF BSL-4 lab design employs a box-in-box principle with a pressure-controlled buffer. Air pressure differentials between zones of containment and directional airflow will be exhausted toward high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters. The exhaust air will not be recirculated. All water and air leaving the lab will be purified (i.e., no research microorganism would enter the sewage system or outside air). All critical functions will have redundant systems.

Back To Top

Design Services Contract

In January 2007, the Department of Homeland Security selected the NBAF Design Partnership (NDP), led by Perkins+Will of Atlanta, Georgia, as the architecture-engineering firm to begin pre-design services, such as determining program requirements, developing a feasibility study, and other planning services. In 2009, NDP began validating program requirements and designing NBAF for the selected site in Manhattan, Kansas.

Back To Top

Preconstruction Phase Services Contract

On September 18, the Department of Homeland Security announced the award of a contract for the preconstruction phase services of the proposed National Bio and Agro Defense Facility (NBAF). This contract will allow the future construction manager to participate during the current design phase as a member of the project core team to perform design and constructability reviews.

The Department selected McCarthy/Mortenson, Joint Venture as the construction firm to complete the preconstruction phase services and construction phase services required for successful completion of the project. McCarthy’s headquarters office is located in St. Louis, MO. Mortenson has local offices in Manhattan, KS and is the largest general contractor in that area. McCarthy/Mortenson was awarded the contract through a competitive process based upon their expertise in constructing biocontainment labs. The contract awarded to McCarthy/Mortenson includes phased options to award future construction tasks to the firm for the duration of the NBAF development process as part of the Construction Manager as Constructor (CMc) acquisition approach successfully used on the Department’s National BioDefense Analysis & Countermeasures Center (NBACC) project.

Back To Top