Award: Airplane hangars
Value: $69 million
Location: Kapolei, Hawai'i
Client: U.S. Coast Guard
The U.S. Coast Guard has tapped Whiting-Turner Contracting to design and build two new membrane tension hangars and associated facilities at Air Station Barbers Point in Kapolei, Hawai'i, according to a Sept. 16 news release. The cost of the work is approximately $69 million.
As part of the contract, Whiting-Turner will build two fully enclosed hangars that will provide weather-protected facilities for repairing, servicing and sheltering the HC-130J Super Hercules long-range search and rescue aircraft assigned to the air station, according to the release.
Currently, the base’s facilities can only partially enclose one of the massive HC-130J aircraft, which have a wingspan of approximately 133 feet. This leaves the four aircraft exposed to the corrosive saltwater environment.
In addition to weather sheltering, the new hangars will provide long-term protection, improve maintenance capabilities and support critical heavy air transport missions and long-range maritime surveillance patrols across the 12.2 million-square-mile area known as the Oceania District, per the Coast Guard.
The Facilities Design & Construction Center, a field command under the Coast Guard Program Executive Office Shore, is responsible for planning, designing and executing major shore facility construction and recapitalization projects, according to the release.
Additional facilities that the construction team is scoped to build include an aviation materials office, aircraft maintenance shops, office space for air station personnel, a locker room and load cages near the hangars, per the Coast Guard.
Construction at the Barbers Point base is scheduled to begin in 2026 and is expected to be completed by early 2028, according to the release.
This isn’t Whiting-Turner’s first stint working with the Coast Guard. The Baltimore-based builder also recently won a job to modernize the Coast Guard’s base in Seattle. The contract for its work there is worth up to $137 million. As part of that project, the contractor will widen and upgrade berths and demolish an existing building.
