Courtesy Photo | A southern view of building 1093 on Fort Bliss, Texas circa 1962 when it housed two...... read more read more
Building 1093 on Fort Bliss, Texas has been a part of the Army’s Air Defense Artillery since before the branch’s inception on June 20, 1968. Originally built in 1959 and housing two Nike Hercules surface-to-air missile laboratories, the newly renovated building is now home to the U.S. Department of Defense, Missile Defense Agency’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense Academy. The academy is a partnership between the DOD and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to train Royal Saudi Air Defense Forces soldiers on how to operate and maintain the THAAD battery.
When the MDA reached out to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth District’s Southwest Area Office with a plan to renovate the building for the training academy, they set the timeline at 24 months. A normal redesign of this magnitude would typically take 30-36 months. A strict timeline of July 15, 2024, was in place for the start of the first class of international students to come through the academy doors.
“It was an incredibly compressed schedule,” said Andrew Davis, the project engineer for the renovation from the district’s Southwest Area Office. “Especially because we were notified in August, put out a solicitation with the contract awarded September 30, 2022.”
Multiple contractors said the work could not be done within the time allotted or for the budget that was set for the project. In the end, the Ross Group stepped in and said they could meet the timeline and budget outlined in the contract.
Building 1093 is one of more than 450 historical buildings on Fort Bliss. Because of its historical significance to the base, the first step before any construction could begin was to contact the post’s historic preservation team.
“We have a programmatic agreement in place with the Texas and New Mexico State Historic Preservation offices,” said Donald Sevigny, a historic preservation specialist with the Directorate of Public Works on Fort Bliss.
“It's a way to streamline the review process that would otherwise be required for federally owned historic properties.”
A consultation package with the Texas SHPO was put through to modify the interior of the building while retaining the general appearance of the exterior. While the consult is normally completed months before construction starts, Sevigny was able to work with the Texas SHPO to complete the consult and keep the project on schedule.
“It was tough when we were told that everything had to look like the original building on the exterior,” said Alex Espinoza, the quality assurance representative from the district’s Southwest Area Office. “That was because we had to follow strict SHPO rules and regulations for any changes to include installing exits to meet modern safety standards for people to exit the building.”
To meet the standards of the modification of the interior set forth by the SHPO and keep the exterior’s general appearance, special construction techniques were followed both inside and out. This included replacing exterior doors with sheet metal made to look like the original roll-up doors while having exit doors built in to meet modern safety standards. The most challenging process was to match the color, texture, and pattern of the originals, which are rolled up and hidden behind the temporary interior walls.
“Everything that is in the building is not permanently adhered to the building,” said Espinoza. “Nothing is drilled into the walls, and a special adhesive that can be removed was used to hold the walls in place. The building can easily be brought back to its normal state as it was before we even started construction.”
In the end the Ross Group and the Southwest Area Office team completed the renovation in just over 18 months.
“I was impressed with the process,” said Thomas Harraghy, chief of the MDA’s KSA THAAD Training Academy. “When we had to start class, we were able to do that and that was the ultimate goal.”
By working as a team, preplanning for long lead items, and implementing value engineering, the renovations were completed ahead of schedule and under budget.
| Date Taken: | 11.18.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 11.18.2024 16:48 |
| Story ID: | 485576 |
| Location: | FORT BLISS, TEXAS, US |
| Web Views: | 85 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
This work, Renovating History, by Patrick Adelmann, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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