The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded a $143,178,782 firm-fixed-price contract to Federal Contracting Inc. of Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Aug. 18, 2026, to build a consolidated maintenance facility for the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming, according to the Department of War's daily contract announcement.
Background
The award, issued by the Army Corps of Engineers' Omaha District under contract number W9128F-26-C-A039, covers design-bid-build construction of what the department calls a "Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) Consolidated Maintenance Facility." The contract's cumulative face value, including options, is listed at $148,264,645. The contract was competitively solicited, with four proposals received before the Aug. 18 award to Federal Contracting Inc. The Sentinel program the facility will support is the land-based leg of the nation's nuclear triad, and award materials describe the project as supporting the broader modernization of that triad.
F.E. Warren Air Force Base is one of the installations tied to the Air Force's effort to replace the aging Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile with the LGM-35A Sentinel. The maintenance-facility award reflects the Sentinel program's continued transition from planning into physical construction on the ground, with the new facility intended to support assembly, servicing, testing and maintenance of missile system components tied to the program.
The Army Corps of Engineers' Omaha District handled the solicitation and award, consistent with its role managing military construction contracting for Air Force installations. Design-bid-build delivery, the method specified in this contract, means the government finalizes design plans first and then competes construction of those finished plans separately, as opposed to design-build delivery, where a single contractor handles both design and construction under one award.
The Department of War's daily contracts release, which logs individual awards above the simplified acquisition threshold across the department each business day, listed this contract alongside other Aug. 18, 2026 awards, reflecting the scale of infrastructure investment still flowing into Sentinel's ground-support footprint even as the broader missile program continues to draw scrutiny in Washington over cost and schedule.
Key Details
The contract specifies design-bid-build construction of a facility described as a consolidated site for the assembly, servicing, testing and maintenance of missile system components tied to the Sentinel program. Consolidating those functions in a single facility is generally intended to streamline the logistics of moving hardware between testing, servicing and storage over the missile's operational life, reducing the need to shuttle components between multiple separate buildings on base.
Federal Contracting Inc., based in Colorado Springs, Colorado, is the contractor of record on the award. The $143,178,782 figure represents the firm-fixed-price value of the base contract, while the Department of War's release lists a separate cumulative face value of $148,264,645, a figure that typically reflects the contract total once previously exercised options or modifications are included.
A specific completion date for the facility was not disclosed in the contract announcement. Ground infrastructure such as maintenance facilities, launch control centers and missile alert facilities generally must be in place before operational missile systems can be fielded at a given base, which is why construction awards of this kind tend to run ahead of a weapon program's operational fielding milestones rather than alongside them.
The facility falls within the broader umbrella of infrastructure work supporting the Sentinel program's transition from the Minuteman III system it is designed to replace, with the award issued under solicitation and contract number W9128F-26-C-A039 through the Omaha District.
Neither the Department of War's release nor the accompanying trade coverage identifies a specific building size, square footage, design firm or completion date for the consolidated maintenance facility. What is specified is the function of the building — supporting assembly, servicing, testing and maintenance of missile system components — and its location within the F.E. Warren installation boundary in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Contractors evaluating the scope of the award should treat the $143,178,782 base contract value and the roughly $148.3 million cumulative face value as the firmest publicly disclosed parameters until the Army Corps of Engineers or the Air Force releases additional project detail, including an expected completion date.
What It Means for Contractors
The award confirms that Sentinel-related military construction spending at F.E. Warren is continuing even as the broader missile program works through cost and schedule scrutiny in Washington. For construction and engineering firms with Army Corps of Engineers experience, the Omaha District's role in awarding this contract signals a sustained pipeline of design-bid-build and related military construction opportunities tied to a program that remains a funded Department of War modernization priority.
Firms without existing Corps of Engineers past performance on secure or classified-adjacent military construction should note that facilities supporting missile-system assembly, servicing and testing typically carry specialized requirements beyond those of conventional base infrastructure projects, including Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) security protocols, heavy structural engineering, advanced climate and environmental controls, and integrated physical security systems. Those requirements typically add cost, coordination and lead time compared with conventional facility work, and they generally require cleared personnel and vetted subcontractors at multiple tiers. That raises the bar for teaming and subcontracting compared with a standard warehouse, hangar or administrative-building award, and firms new to this space should expect a more demanding qualification and vetting process before being cleared to bid or subcontract on similar facilities.
The contract also illustrates that firm-fixed-price remains the government's preferred vehicle for this category of construction, placing cost and schedule risk on the contractor rather than the government once the price is set. Firms bidding on similar consolidated maintenance or logistics facilities tied to the missile program should budget contingency for the specialized handling and testing infrastructure that distinguishes these buildings from standard construction, and should plan for performance periods extending several years given the scope and complexity of the work described in the award.
For subcontractors and suppliers in the region around F.E. Warren, the award signals continued near-term demand for skilled trades, specialized mechanical and electrical installation, and security-system integration work tied to Sentinel ground infrastructure. Companies positioning for follow-on Sentinel construction work at F.E. Warren should track Omaha District solicitations directly, as the program's ground-support buildout at the base continues.
