2002 Construction at $4.7 billion: the state is abuzz with construction activity-everything from schools to roads to airports to housing.

• Author: Parmalee, Catherine
• Position: Short Story

The construction industry is in full swing, with about $4.7 billion being spent on activities this year in Alaska. Resident voters will help determine if that amount slightly rises or declines in 2003.

"There could be $5 billion for construction for 2003," said Richard Cattanach, executive director, Associated General Contractors of Alaska. "A big thing is what the voters say. If $450 million is appropriated, that's 10 percent of our budget forecast."

As a result of Senate Bill 525 and House Bill 2002, ballots will be cast in the fall to determine if $262 million will be put aside for general obligation bonds toward funding highway projects and more than $150 million in general obligation bonds toward school construction--with an additional $62 million for the University of Alaska.

Regardless of the outcome, a surfeit of various construction projects is in the works at the moment, and much of that work will continue through 2003 and beyond.

FEDERAL

"The Alaska District's construction program will be expanding for at least the next three years," said Steve Boardman, assistant chief of programs and project management division for the U.S. Anny Corps of Engineers. "Our total program, including design, construction and management, will top $400 million this year and next."

According to Boardman, the largest projects are support facilities for the ground-based missile defense and the Bassett hospital replacement "We have many ongoing projects for the Air Force and the Army in Alaska," he said. "We expect to finish construction of new harbors at Ouzinkie this fall and at Chignik in 2003. We just signed a cooperation agreement for a new harbor at Nome. We hope to start that construction next summer."

The Bassett Army Replacement Hospital on Fort Wainwright is a $215 million, four-phase project of the Alaska District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; Department of Defense Medical Facilities Office; U.S. Army Alaska; MEDDAC-Alaska (Bassett Army Community Hospital); Health Facilities Planning Agency; the architectural-engineering design team of HKS Inc./Wingler & Sharp of Texas; as well as Alaska consultants--HMS Estimating, Arctic Slope Consulting Group, DOWL Engineers and Land Design North--and the construction contractor.

The construction contract was awarded in February to the joint venture firms of Dick Pacific, Anchorage, and GHEMM Co., headquartered in Fairbanks, in the amount of $178 million. This construction contract is Phase II of the replacement hospital program. Foundations, footings and steel fabrication were in the works at press time. In June, around 50 people were working on the project That number is expected to crest to 150 by August The project's pinnacle construction years will be 2003 and 2004.

The new facility, adjacent to the existing structure, will be a 269,000-squarefoot replacement hospital designed for Fairbanks' subarctic climate that will be built to operate through an extreme earthquake.

Phase I, site development, was completed last year by Exclusive Landscaping of Fairbanks. Phase III will include the installation of medical and communications equipment. Phase IV will bring the demolition of the existing hospital.

In April, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) awarded a construction contract to Fluor Alaska Inc. for test bed facilities at Fort Greely and Eareckson Air Force Station on Shemya Island that will be used to validate the U.S. Ground-Based Midcourse Missile Defense System. The contract could amount to 250 million in construction, or possibly more, if...