Bethesda, Maryland-based Clark Construction has won a $617.5 million design-build contract to construct a state-of-the-art healthcare facility in El Paso, Texas, for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Fort Worth District, according to a Jan. 4 release.
The roughly 493,000-square-foot project at Fort Bliss will provide outpatient services to veterans, such as primary care, mental health care and ambulatory surgery.
The Sun Belt and Southwest have seen an influx of veterans in recent years, causing VA Secretary Denis McDonough to call for the closing of VA facilities in the Northeast, Midwest and rural West to address the population shift. In the Southwest, veteran presence could increase by 25% over the next decade, while ex-military presence in regions like New England could drop 18%, according to the Washington Post.
Clark has experience in the healthcare project field, having taken on 134 healthcare-related jobs in the last decade, totaling 20 million square feet and 5,158 hospital beds, according to the contractor’s website. Among those projects is the 1.3-million-square-feet William Beaumont Army Medical Center, also at Fort Bliss.
Clark’s work on the new project will include primary utilities, a new central energy plant, access roads, surface parking, stormwater management and landscaping.
When finished, the project will provide health services for 54,000 veterans in the region, according to Michael Brennan, executive director of the VA’s Office of Construction and Facilities Management. Brennan said the Clark award “is the result of VA’s efforts to improve planning and implementation of a design-build project.”