Norton DHS Headquarters Hearing Reveals Promising Job Numbers for D.C. Residents and Businesses

Norton DHS Headquarters Hearing Reveals Promising Job Numbers for D.C. Residents and Businesses

June 17, 2010

WASHINGTON, DC - The Office of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) released the latest results on small business opportunities and jobs at a field hearing on the new U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Headquarters construction site in Ward 8. Norton, Chair of the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management, which has jurisdiction over the agency in charge of constructing the headquarters, held an official hearing Tuesday evening in Ward 8 to report on the status of the much anticipated development. The DHS project marks the first time the federal government has built east of the Anacostia River. The headquarters is the largest development in the country today and the largest in this region since the Pentagon.

At the standing room only hearing, Shapour Ebadi of the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), and Lincoln Lawrence of Clark Construction Group testified that the major construction work and hiring will not begin until late summer, and the project is already on track to award 40 percent of the contracts to small businesses, eight percent to disadvantaged businesses, and five percent to women-owned businesses. Sixty-one of the 70 subcontracts already awarded in Phase One of the project, have gone to small businesses, including 25 based in the District, of which 13 have been in Ward 8. These include awards to two African-American women-owned businesses, Beverly Thomas's Regional Contracting Services and Yanic Hardie's Hardie Industries. Both testified at the hearing that they each had won a number of federal contracts in the past.

"We particularly noted that these two minority women-owned companies are in non-traditional fields for women. Hardie is in demolition and Regional is in construction carpentry," said Norton. These contracts demonstrate that people of color and women are not only prepared to compete, but have been successful in competing for GSA contracts on this project."

Clark Construction, the primary contractor for Phase One of the site, reported that it has employed 17 apprentices, 12 of whom are District residents. Norton secured $3 million for pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. During the current pre-hiring phase, trucks are hauling dirt in preparation for construction.

The DHS headquarters will provide 38,000 construction-related jobs and many small business contracts through 2016, in addition to bringing 14,000 federal jobs to Ward 8. "The District's official unemployment rate is 11 percent, with an estimated 30 percent unemployment rate in Ward 8," Norton said. "I do not intend to bring a nearly $3.4 billion development to the District without ensuring that residents near the site and in the city benefit in the competition for jobs and small business opportunities."

To this end, Norton worked with GSA to build a new Opportunities Center at the St. Elizabeths West Campus, which opened for business in Ward 8 in February of 2010, to give residents direct access to jobs and small business opportunities as they become available.

Earlier today, the Congresswoman's subcommittee also addressed some of the macro issues related to the overall planning and construction of the DHS headquarters at a congressional hearing on GSA's Capital Investment and Leasing Program, which contains an additional $380 million request for continued construction on the DHS headquarters.