Pernix Federal Wins $319M Contract for US Consulate in Nigeria

Rendering of embassy building surrounded by roadways and waterways

The project will be located on a 12.2-acre site in Eko Atlantic, a new coastal city being constructed on Victoria Island.
Courtesy State Dept. Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations by Ennead Architects

The U.S. State Dept. has awarded a $319-million design-build contract to Pernix Federal LLC, based in Lombard, Ill., for a new U.S. consulate building in Lagos, Nigeria.

The department’s Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO), which announced the award on Oct. 5, said the project will be located on a 12.2-acre site in Eko Atlantic, a new coastal city being constructed on Victoria Island.

Eko Atlantic includes some 10 million square meters of land reclaimed from the ocean. The city will include an 8.5-km-long seawall, which OBO said is “designed to protect the city from rising sea levels and coastal erosion.”

The U.S. consulate project’s design architect is Ennead Architects. OBO said it expects the project to be completed in 2027.

Doha Project Award

The news about the Lagos contract follows OBO’s Sept 16 announcement of a design-build contract award to American International Contractors Inc., Arlington, Va., for a new U.S. embassy in Doha, Qatar.

The contract value is $228.5 million, according to SAM.gov, the federal contract database. The design architect for the Doha project is Richärd Kennedy Architects, based in Phoenix.

OBO said that since 1999, when the State Dept. began its Capital Security Construction Program, it has completed 168 new facilities.

Among those are three projects finished in fiscal year 2121—new embassies in Maputo, Mozambique; Niamey, Niger; and Reykjavik, Iceland.

At OBO's most recent annual meeting of its industry advisory group, held virtually on Sept. 17, it reported that it has 23 embassy, consulate or other major projects under construction, including two building rehabilitations and one lease fit-out.

[View OBO meeting booklet here. Project lists begin on p. 50]

It listed 12 projects in design, including the facilities in Lagos and Doha.

Among its 2021 design awards were embassies in Bangui, Central African Republic; Juba, South Sudan; Port Louis, Mauritius; and an embassy annex in Moscow.

OBO Leadership Change Coming

At the advisory group meeting, OBO’s acting director, Henry V. Jardine, said, “Really, under some very difficult conditions over the past year, we were able to be very successful across many fronts, from [site] acquisitions to design to construction to completion."

Jardine also said the Sept. 17 gathering was probably his last meeting of the advisory group, saying that he soon would be moving to new assignment, as director of the State Dept.’s career development and assignments office.

Jardine said his successor at OBO will be William H. Moser, who will return to Washington from his post as U.S. ambassador to Kazakhstan. Moser is a familiar face around the bureau—he was OBO’s acting director from 2017 to 2019.

The changeover is expected to take place before the end of October.

Tom Ichniowski has been writing about the federal government as ENR’s Washington Bureau Chief since the George H.W. Bush administration, and he has covered at least five major highway bills. A recognized expert on government policy on infrastructure and regulation, Tom is also a Baltimore native and Orioles fan who grew up rooting for Brooks and Frank Robinson. He is a graduate of Columbia College and Columbia’s graduate school of journalism, where he once used “unrelentless” in a headline.

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