Facility Design & Construction for the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility

Proposed Facility Details

The proposed 520,000 square foot National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) would provide animal testing capability needed for the licensure of the human disease vaccines, defend against high-consequence human and foreign animal diseases in livestock, and provide the essential departmental infrastructure requirements for threat characterization, forensics and detection.

The NBAF would feature the latest advances in security and technology:

• Class III gloveboxes,
• Class I or II biological safety cabinets (BSCs) in Biosafety Level (BSL) 3 labs, and
• Class III BSCs or Class I or II BSCs in combination with full-body, air-supplied, positive-pressure personnel suits in BSL-4 labs.

Personnel controls include federal background checks, required biometric testing for lab entry, and no solitary access to BSL-4 microorganisms allowed. More about proposed NBAF and biosafety levels.

The NBAF BSL-4 lab design employs a box-in-box principle with a pressure-controlled buffer. Air pressure differentials between zones of containment and directional airflow will be exhausted toward high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters. The exhaust air will not be recirculated. All water and air leaving the lab will be purified (i.e., no research microorganism would enter the sewage system or outside air). All critical functions will have redundant systems.

Conceptual Design Contract

In January 2007, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the award of a contract for the conceptual (non-site specific) design of the proposed NBAF. DHS selected NBAF Design Partnership (NDP) Associates of Atlanta, Georgia, as the architect-engineering firm to begin work on the conceptual (non site-specific) preliminary NBAF design. The negotiated cost of the conceptual design work is $2.4 million, with the total estimated cost of all other design services approximately $45 million.

Award of the conceptual design contract to NDP Associates is independent of and does not interfere in any way with the previously announced and continuing NBAF site selection process. Potential follow-on design work, described above, will be specific to site(s) selected for analysis through preparation of the environmental impact statement (EIS), and other engineering and architectural products required prior to breaking ground on a new facility.

The Architectural and Engineering Conceptual Design and Feasibility Study was completed in August of 2007.