The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded Federal Contracting Inc., doing business as Bryan Construction, a $54,775,225 firm-fixed-price contract on July 8 to build B-21 West Alert Apron environmental protection shelters at Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota, according to the Department of War's daily contracts announcement. The award is the Colorado Springs firm's latest major B-21 infrastructure contract at the base, deepening its role in the buildout ahead of the bomber's first operational arrivals in 2027.
Background
Ellsworth is the Air Force's first operational bed-down location for the B-21 Raider, the Northrop Grumman-built stealth bomber set to replace the B-1B and eventually the B-2. With the first operational aircraft scheduled to arrive at the base in 2027, the Army Corps of Engineers' Omaha District has spent several years pushing military construction dollars into the installation to stand up hangars, maintenance facilities, training buildings and flight-line infrastructure on a tight timeline.
Bryan Construction has been a recurring name in that buildout. The company previously completed a $43.7 million addition and alteration to Building 8205, converting the facility from B-1 simulator operations to B-21 flight simulator capability, and it has also built the B-21 Washrack and Maintenance Hangar, the Mission Operations Planning and Field Training Detachment facility, and the B-21 Formal Training Unit and Aircraft Maintenance Unit at Ellsworth. The new alert apron shelter contract extends that track record with another major award at the base.
The West Alert Apron work lands alongside a separate, competitively awarded contract to Conti Federal Services for roughly $43.9 million to build a different set of B-21 environmental protection shelters, known as the "60 Row South" shelters, at the same base. Taken together, the two contracts show the Army Corps splitting the base's alert apron construction across multiple prime contractors rather than concentrating all of it with a single firm, even as one company continues to win repeat business.
Ellsworth's transformation has unfolded in stages tied to the B-21's flight test and production schedule. Early construction focused on training and simulator facilities so aircrews could begin building proficiency before jets physically arrived, followed by maintenance and washrack infrastructure to support the aircraft once it starts flying operational sorties. Alert apron shelters represent a later-stage investment, since alert operations — keeping armed, fueled aircraft ready for rapid launch — only become relevant once a squadron has enough airframes on hand to sustain a rotation. The timing of this award, roughly a year before the base's first B-21 arrivals, tracks that sequencing.
Key Details
The contract, numbered W9128F-26-C-A043, is a firm-fixed-price design-bid-build award for construction of the B-21 West Alert Apron environmental protection shelters. The Army Corps of Engineers competed the work over the internet and received three offers before selecting Bryan Construction. The full award value of $54,775,225 was obligated at the time of award using fiscal 2026 military construction, defense-wide funds.
Work will be performed at Ellsworth Air Force Base, with an estimated completion date of Oct. 16, 2028 — roughly a year after the first B-21s are expected to touch down at the installation. The Army Corps of Engineers' Omaha District, Nebraska, is the contracting activity managing the award.
Environmental protection shelters of this kind are flight-line structures designed to limit ultraviolet exposure, snow accumulation and melt, and icing and de-icing work on the aircraft, which extends airframe life and reduces required maintenance. They also let crews generate sorties more quickly by removing the need to move aircraft in and out of hangars before every launch, a function that makes them a working part of alert operations rather than a purely administrative facility.
The October 2028 completion date, combined with the parallel Conti Federal award for the 60 Row South shelters, points to a construction schedule that is running in phases across the alert apron rather than as a single consolidated package — a pattern consistent with the base's broader approach of awarding overlapping military construction packages to keep pace with the aircraft's arrival timeline.
What It Means for Contractors
The award illustrates how a single military construction site can generate a sustained pipeline of separate, competitively bid contracts rather than one large omnibus package. Bryan Construction's latest Ellsworth B-21 award came through the same internet-based competitive process as its earlier wins, with three offers submitted for this contract — a reminder that incumbency at a site does not eliminate competition, even when a contractor has already built a track record there.
For firms chasing military construction work tied to the B-21 bed-down, the split between Bryan Construction's West Alert Apron shelters and Conti Federal's 60 Row South shelters is instructive. The Army Corps is not routing all alert apron construction to one prime, which keeps the door open for additional primes to bid on remaining phases of shelter construction, taxiway work, or other flight-line infrastructure still needed before 2027. Contractors that have not yet worked at Ellsworth should watch for follow-on synopses from the Omaha District, since the base's construction needs are clearly not finished with this award.
Subcontractors and suppliers in structural steel, environmental controls, and specialty coatings should also take note. Environmental protection shelters built to house a low-observable aircraft typically carry more stringent specifications than a standard hangar, which can create openings for firms with experience in signature-sensitive facility construction to bid into the supply chain on these and future Ellsworth packages.
The FY2026 defense-wide military construction funding obligated at award, rather than incremental funding tied to future fiscal years, gives Bryan Construction full funding certainty for the project from day one. Contractors evaluating similar military construction opportunities tied to aircraft bed-downs should expect this kind of full obligation to remain the norm for firm-fixed-price design-bid-build packages where the government wants schedule certainty ahead of a hard operational deadline like the B-21's 2027 arrival.
Contractors that build a track record with the Omaha District on Ellsworth's alert apron, simulator, and maintenance packages are also positioning themselves with directly relevant past performance. Design-bid-build experience on signature-sensitive shelters and B-21 support facilities is a specific, demonstrable credential that will carry weight in any future Army Corps solicitation for comparable low-observable aircraft infrastructure, whether at Ellsworth or elsewhere in the Air Force's construction pipeline.
