The 16th Air Force headquarters on Security Hill at JBSA-Lackland.
U.S.Air Force photo
A look at the 16th Air Force complex from the air. The building sits on a slightly elevated part of Joint base San Antonio-Lackland that is often called Security Hill. The 16th is in the building on the lower left hand side of the photo.
U.S. Air Force
A rendering depicts an aerial view of Port San Antonio’s concept known as the Defense Industrial Research Campus of the Future.
Port San Antonio
The Pentagon has thrown a curveball at Port San Antonio’s quest to lure the Air Force’s cyber headquarters from its crumbling buildings for a new, $1 billion-plus campus at the port.
The week before the port’s board committed $1 million for predesign work on the project, the Army Corps of Engineers put out a call for proposals to build a facility at the unit’s current location on Joint Base San Antonio–Lackland’s Security Hill.
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The competing program seeks bids to develop a $986 million “Multi-Domain Cyber and Intel Operations Center” for the 16th Air Force, also known as Air Forces Cyber, that would support 3,500 workers.
RELATED: Port San Antonio approves $1M for efforts to lure Air Force cyber hub
Port officials declined to comment about the Army Corps proposal and said they’re continuing discussions as part of the agreement they signed with the Air Force in May to “explore planning and development efforts for potential off-base solutions that could support (Air Force) missions.” That was about a month before the port’s approval of predesign money.
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Like the port’s pitch, which promises a new facility cheaper and faster by using an intergovernmental support agreement instead of the traditional military construction process, the Pentagon’s solicitation also seeks to use nontraditional methods.
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According to a Corps presentation, the cyber hub would be one of its first projects to use a “progressive design-build” approach, which allows a vendor to be selected before design is complete. Then the government and vendor would negotiate the final details and price of the project in a setup that is more akin to private-sector deals.
READ MORE: Air Force scuttles plans to raise the status of its San Antonio cyber hub
The Corps also plans to use an “Other Transaction Agreement,” a contracting method that falls outside of federal acquisition rules and has been increasingly used for high-tech and classified programs, often dealing with drones, autonomy, missiles, space, artificial intelligence and cyber.
Using that method allows more flexibility for the Pentagon and its vendors, but it means less public transparency and fewer taxpayer protections.
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More than 100 people attended a corps-hosted industry day for potential vendors for the cyber center held Tuesday at Lackland. No port officials were listed as attendees.
The project calls for a 600,000-square-foot structure with its own 12,500-square-foot utility plant that would be home to the Air Force’s “cyber, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, electronic warfare and information operations” programs.
FROM 2024: Port San Antonio wants to build $1 billion-plus campus to house Air Forces Cyber
Much of the “facility will be a purpose-built Cyber Operations Data Center, engineered to support high-performance computing (HPC), AI server clusters and Machine Learning (ML) platforms” and “will feature scalable, high-density power infrastructure designed for future expansion.”
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The formal solicitation is set to go out on Aug. 26 and will run for a month. Potential vendors must submit their qualifications and pitches.
The Corps expects to award the contract in two phases beginning in 2028.
The Air Force didn’t respond to requests for comment about the proposed center, the status of its talks with Port San Antonio or whether it’s committed to keeping AFCYBER on Lackland.
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Before the latest development, the port’s 2-year-old proposal appeared to have regained momentum after stalling last year amid changes at the Pentagon under the Trump administration.
Port President and CEO Jim Perschbach didn’t comment on the Pentagon’s new plan, but last month he said, “if we don’t get a deal in the next year and a half, then this whole thing is going to fall back into another big step period — and the reason I say that is just change in administrations, change in priorities — so my hope is that we get to something executable and moving forward.”