Hensel Phelps was recently awarded the $192 million contract to build a new data center for the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) in Urbana, Maryland. The data center will be constructed on a 65 acre site SSA purchased last Fall. The 400,000 square foot National Service Center will perform the primary data operations of the SSA, which includes processing payments exceeding $700 billion to nearly 57 million beneficiaries.
In this tight-fisted budget era, its hard to imagine the federal government shelling out the $500 million all-in cost estimated to fully complete this project, but this particular one is funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (the “Stimulus Bill”). The data center will replace the aging National Computer Center in Woodlawn which was designed in the 1970s. Substantial completion of the building is expected by Fall of 2014, and IT systems installed and operational two years later.