The National Security Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has awarded a $1.2-billion design-build contract for its data center project at Camp Williams in Utah to the Balfour Beatty/DPR/Big-D joint venture.

The project encompasses 100,000 sq ft of a Tier III data center and 900,000 sq ft of technical support and administrative space. Support components include water-treatment facilities, a vehicle inspection area, interim visitor control center, perimeter site security measures, fuel storage, water storage, chiller plant, fire suppression systems and 100% electrical generator and UPS back-up capacity.

The facility will showcase innovative technology and energy-efficiency features and be built to achieve LEED-Silver certification. KlingStubbins, Philadelphia, and Salt Lake City-based Architectural Nexus will serve as design partners to the joint venture team.

In addition to sustainable requirements, the team will maximize the use of building information modeling.

NSA first revealed its intent to build a 1-million-sq-ft data center in Utah in July 2009 and began accepting bids in January. The agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers narrowed down the number of firms bidding on the billion-dollar project to five groups of companies in April.

The winning team, which consists of Balfour Beatty Construction of Dallas, DPR Construction of Redwood City, Calif., and Big-D Construction of Salt Lake City, beat out four other finalists, including Whiting-Turner of Baltimore and Dynamic Systems of Austin, Texas; Turner Construction of New York, Kiewit Building Group of Omaha, and Jacobsen Construction of Salt Lake City; Skanska USA Building of Parsipanny, N.J., and Oakland Construction of Salt Lake City; and Hensel Phelps Construction of Greeley, Colo.

The team held several open houses and targeted workshops to solicit interest and input from local businesses. As the project moves forward, the team will continue working with local and small businesses to ensure their involvement in the project.

Construction on the fast-track project is set to begin later this year.