CONCORD, Mass. – A new facility will be designed and constructed at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Winchester Engineering and Analytical Center in Winchester, Mass., under the terms of a $54,345,019.00 contract issued recently by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New England District. Work will be accomplished by The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company, of Baltimore, Maryland. The contract was awarded on July 31, 2018. A notice to proceed was issued Aug. 24. Design is anticipated to start in October 2018 and construction to start in late spring 2019. The contract duration is three years.
This project includes the design and construction of a new Winchester Engineering and Analytical Center (WEAC) for the Food and Drug Administration in Winchester, Mass. The new WEAC facility will be designed and constructed in accordance with the 2015 International Building Code and the National Institute of Health Design Requirements Manual for Biomedical Laboratories and Animal Research Facilities.
The WEAC facility is a multi-disciplinary, full-service specialty laboratory with capabilities in the areas of medical, device/radiation-emitting products testing, radionuclides research, and microbiology analyses. This facility is the FDA’s only major laboratory installation to provide services in these specialty areas. The existing building was constructed in 1952 on 5.9 acres of land and provides approximately 43,000 square feet of laboratory, office, and warehouse space. The existing facility no longer meets current program requirements of FDA’s updated lab and office standards.
The new building will provide approximately 75,000 building gross square feet to house the engineering branch; the radionuclides branch; and the bioeffects branch; support office areas, such as the director’s office, WEAC headquarters, and shared support areas. Existing site electrical, water, sewer, gas, telecom, and storm drainage are available on or adjacent to the site and will be provided from points of connection to the new building.
The work is located immediately adjacent to and within the site of the occupied existing WEAC facility. Testing and analytical work will be ongoing in the existing facility during the construction of the new WEAC facility. Impacts to ongoing operations will be kept to a minimum.
The project will be managed by the Corps under the supervision of a Corps’ Quality Assurance Representative to assure compliance with contract requirements. For more information on contracting visit the website at: www.nae.usace.army.mil/BusinessWithUs/Contracting.aspx. For general information visit: www.nae.usace.army.mil/. For Small Business opportunities visit: www.nae.usace.army.mil/BusinessWithUs/SmallBusiness.aspx.