Government
Hensel Phelps Wins $275M GSA Contract for Arizona Border Station
The new facility would provide more space for commercial vehicle inspections at the border crossing in Douglas, Ariz., and allow the smaller Raul Hector Castro Land Port of Entry to focus on personal vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists and buses.
Photo by Donna Burton/U.S. Customs and Border Protections
Plans to increase commercial vehicle inspection capacity at the land port of entry along the Mexico border in Douglas, Ariz., are moving along as the U.S. General Services Administration awarded a $274.7-million design-build contract to Hensel Phelps Construction Co. for a commercial port near an existing U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility.
The planned 80-acre facility would increase the number of commercial vehicle inspection lanes from one to four, and the number of commercial inspection docks from 12 to 36, compared to the current Raul Hector Castro Land Port of Entry in Douglas, according to GSA. It would also be large enough to accommodate oversized mining equipment, which is too big for the existing port to accommodate.
Hensel Phelps, with a team that also includes Jones Studio and Stantec, beat out two other shortlisted design-build teams for the job, GSA procurement records show. The other shortlisted teams were Caddell-AISI, a Joint Venture, and William Charles Construction and Wilson & Co. Engineers and Architects.
Construction is scheduled to start next fall and complete in the fall of 2028.
Hensel Phelps did not immediately respond to inquiries about the project. GSA also selected the contractor this summer for expansion and modernization of the Calexico West Land Port of Entry in California.
GSA is funding the Arizona work with $180.3 million from 2021’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which includes $3.4 billion for building and modernizing land ports of entry, along with with $92.2 million from 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act, which set another $3.4 billion for using low-embodied carbon construction materials and making federal facilities more sustainable. The project is part of an effort to achieve a net-zero emissions federal building portfolio by 2045.
The project is part of the “two-port solution” to address issues with the Castro Land Port of Entry about 4.5 miles away. That 4.8-acre facility was originally built in 1933 and expanded in 1993, but GSA officials say all inbound and outbound trucks must use the same undersized commercial vehicle inspection compound, slowing traffic.
While all commercial operations would be done at the new port, passenger vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists and buses would continue using the Castro Land Port of Entry. GSA also plans to separately expand and modernize that port.
GSA anticipates awarding a separate design-build contract for the Castro Land Port of Entry rehabilitation in the fall of 2027. Work is planned to start the following year and complete in 2031.
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