Posted by Apolline Andrie-Delille — September 30, 2024 — The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) and U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced in August the selection of Clark Construction to provide general construction for the new Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) 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 (IRA) funding, as part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s Investing in America agenda, making it GSA’s largest single IRA project investment to-date.
Image courtesy of ZGF Architects
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.
Designed by ZGF Architects, the CISA HQ 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 Btus per square foot per year, according to GSA. 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 to better facilitate collaboration across its components and offices, and inspire cohesive work to ensure U.S. infrastructure is secure and resilient. The move will also help bring skilled, high-tech jobs east of the Anacostia River. The projects at St. Elizabeths support hundreds of jobs each year, leveraging local ties and economic benefits to the community, including small businesses. Since 2010, the St. Elizabeths Opportunities Center has raised awareness about project objectives, employment and business opportunities, and other community benefits.
This announcement also furthers the Biden-Harris Administration’s Federal Buy Clean Initiative, under which the federal government is, for the first time, prioritizing the purchase of low embodied carbon materials that have lower levels of greenhouse gas emissions associated with their production, use and disposal. These investments aim to expand America’s industrial capacity for manufacturing goods and materials of the future, address the climate crisis, and create good-paying jobs for workers in the region.
The IRA includes $3.4 billion for GSA to use its buying power to promote the development and manufacturing of low-embodied carbon construction materials and to make federal facilities more sustainable and cost-efficient. GSA’s IRA projects will implement new technologies and accelerate GSA’s efforts toward achieving a net-zero emissions federal building portfolio by 2045. Through these investments, GSA estimates that it could reduce carbon emissions by over 2 million metric tons in operational greenhouse gas emissions. That’s the equivalent of taking about 500,000 gasoline-powered passenger vehicles off the road for one year.
For more information about GSA’s IRA projects, visit GSA’s Inflation Reduction Act web page.
