Images courtesy DHS

The new Coast Guard headquarters will be built in Washington, D.C., on the 176-acre site of the former St. Elizabeths Hospital.

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Armed with $5.5 billion in federal stimulus funds, the U.S. General Services Administration has awarded contracts totaling more than $1 billion in the past two months. On August 14, it awarded its largest one yet: a $435 million design-build contract for a new U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters building in Washington, D.C. The project team includes four design firms: HOK, Quinn Evans Architects, WDG Architecture, McKissack and McKissack, all led by contractor Clark Construction Group of Bethesda, Maryland.

The project was initially launched in 2007 when plans were announced to move the headquarters, currently housed in southwest D.C., to the 176-acre site of the former St. Elizabeths Hospital. Chicago-based Perkins+Will created the original design of the 1.2 million square-foot building under a separate contract, but a lack of funding stalled progress until $162 million from the ARRA jumpstarted the project. Perkins+Will created bridging documents to pass the project on to the design-build team.

Under the new team, St. Louis-based HOK is providing interior design, landscape architecture, construction documents, and administration. Quinn Evans Architects of Washington, D.C., will handle historic preservation duties. The Washington office of WDG Architecture is the architect of record for the headquarters building, while McKissack and McKissack of Washington is architect of record for a 1,000-car garage and central utility plant.

Groundbreaking is scheduled for this month, with completion in 2013.