Installations looking for help to repair or renovate buildings need look no further than the U.S. Army Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville. The Center’s Facilities Repair and Renewal (FRR) Program offers a fast track, efficient method for design and execution of all types of facility repairs, renovations and minor construction; and, is available to all districts and their customers as part of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ one-door-to-the Corps policy.
The key to the program’s success is innovative use of Indefinite Delivery/ Indefinite Quantity service/construction contracts covering all 50 states plus U.S. territories.
One example of the type of work the FRR Program performs is a two-year general maintenance and repair and preventive maintenance contract at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C. In September 2012, the Huntsville Center awarded a $3.6 million contract to Phelps & Phelps, a Minority Owned Small Business (8a), to provide general maintenance and repair services and preventive maintenance services for the National Defense University (NDU) building 64, Lincoln Hall. Lincoln Hall is approximately 250,000 square feet of administrative, educational, and conference facility that was completed in 2008.
The project is nearly 80 percent complete. Completion is expected by September 2014. To improve the general appearance and function of the facility, the contractor is repairing all elements associated with and attached to the construction on the interior and exterior of the building, assisting in coordinating existing warranty responses to the NDU facilities engineer; and general maintenance and repair of all interior component(s). Replacement of more than 3,139 fluorescent lamps; inspection and cleaning of approximately 100,000 square feet of roof and 34 roof drains; inspecting the lightning protection system; repairing approximately 85 lavatories and 30 urinals; maintaining the loading dock equipment; and repairing and maintaining approximately 239 variable air volume units.
Preventive maintenance is being performed on mechanical and plumbing systems per the manufacturer’s recommendations; electrical systems including all cabling and only hardware rated at 480 volts and below; and other components to include loading dock equipment, approximately 100,000 square feet of roof and the lightning protection system.
Huntsville Center and the NDU facilities engineer are working together to establish quality standards based on customer complaints; to ensure that funding for work orders (WOs) has been established and maintained through annual audits; and to set certain thresholds for approval of WOs.
Together, the team performs the technical analysis to determine the feasibility of the contractor proposed work and a cost analysis to determine if funds are available to cover the WO and ensure that the government is getting a fair and reasonable price for the work. Once that is determined, the contractor gets to work.
This article originally appeared in the July/August/September 2014 issue of the Public Works Digest.