Artist's rendition of facility conceptual design.

The General Services Administration (GSA) awarded the lease contract on behalf of the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Legacy Management (LM) for a records management and operations facility to be located in Morgantown, West Virginia on June 9, 2008. The design and construction team for the facility includes FD Partners, LLC and Petroplus and Associates, LLC as the developers; Paradigm Architecture as the architect; and Dick Corporation as the general contractor.

The 59,000-square-foot facility, located on a 10-acre site in the West Virginia University Research Park, will house more than 90 Federal and contractor personnel supporting the DOE's Office of Legacy Management. The facility will contain non-classified records from the cold war nuclear legacy. The records, now maintained at several Federal Records Centers, will be centralized at the Morgantown facility and will be accessible to researchers, former contractor employees, and other authorized persons both in on-site records research facilities and via a state of the art electronic record keeping system.
Since award of the lease, GSA, DOE, and the design and construction team have completed the ground lease with West Virginia University, completed preliminary building layout and office infrastructure decisions, developed security planning and transportation criteria, and developed the issues and questions needed for the Design Intent Drawings due mid-October. DOE provided the final input to the developer to meet that milestone. The developer is preparing to order building components, such as steel, and the project is on schedule and within budget for occupancy in December 2009. DOE executed the Occupancy Agreement and all of the necessary funding mechanisms with GSA to meet the fiscal year 2008 requirements.

In keeping with the Federal Government's support of environmentally friendly buildings, the project had the goal to achieve the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program “silver” certification. An archivist consultant (assisting with National Archives and Records Administration compliance) and a LEED consultant provided feedback on the designs and assisted with achieving LEED “silver” certification.

LM is currently working with GSA and the developer to finalize design details related to layout of the space and specific tenant improvements. Construction is planned to commence summer 2009 and is expected to be completed in November 2009 with the building occupied in December 2009.