The head of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) on Tuesday helped to formally begin construction of a new office building for agency employees in New Mexico.
NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty was joined by, among others, Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) to break ground on the Albuquerque Complex: office space for nearly 1,000 NNSA headquarters employees. The complex, on Kirtland Air Force Base near Albuquerque, is to be built by Alabama-based Caddell Construction under a $150-million contract awarded in April by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The new complex will provide space for New Mexico-based NNSA employees, mostly administrative personnel, who now work among 25 older facilities on the base. Some of the facilities date to World War II. Construction on the new complex is slated to wrap up in fiscal 2020, according to the NNSA’s 2019 budget request.
Congress capped the Albuquerque Complex’s costs at $175 million in the fiscal 2018 omnibus budget bill signed into law in March. The NNSA thinks the facility will cost about $200 million to complete, according to the agency’s 2019 budget request. Construction costs are slated to peak this year at $98 million: the amount appropriated for the complex in the \omnibus budget.
The Senate and the House both met the White House’s request of about $48 million for builidng the Albuquerque Complex in fiscal 2019, which begins on Oct. 1. Both chambers have passed their final 2019 NNSA funding measures, which now must be reconciled into a compromise bill before President Donald Trump can sign the budget into law.
