Norton Begins Planning for September DHS Groundbreaking Following Award of Contract By GSA (8/20/09)

Norton Begins Planning for September DHS Groundbreaking Following Award of Contract by GSA

August 20, 2009

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today said she is planning for a September groundbreaking for the first building in the new Department of Homeland Security Headquarters (DHS) complex in Southeast after the award of a $435 million contract to Clark Design Build, LLC, by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) to begin building the U.S. Coast Guard headquarters in the DHS complex.

Norton, who chairs the Subcommittee with jurisdiction over GSA and who serves on the Homeland Security committee, has already secured $1 billion for the DHS complex. She said the award of the contract will jump start the largest federal construction project in the country and the largest in the history of the GSA. The Congresswoman worked to ensure that minority-owned small disadvantaged business began seeing benefits from this DHS construction from the beginning. Of the $28 million spent on pre-construction clean-up and site stabilization, minority-owned small disadvantaged businesses received 100 percent of the contracts with 40 percent of those going to District of Columbia businesses. Norton has no doubts that the District of Columbia will get its fair share of jobs and small business opportunities although federal procurement rules do not allow specific percentages of federal jobs to go to residents of any particular state or District. Norton said that a GSA mobile facility will be located at the DHS construction site to help D.C. residents understand the application process for jobs there, and to help them apply for the jobs. She has also secured special funds for pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship training. The contractors will hire for the jobs, but Norton will monitor the hiring on a weekly bases.

"Despite the large boost from stimulus funds, there are no silver bullets to combat the structural changes now underway in the U.S. economy," Norton said. "The District has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, in no small part, because the economy refused to get going and stay up. The DHS construction work will continue for almost a decade and give desperately needed stability, jobs, and small business opportunities to D.C. residents."