Air Force seeks design-build contractor for $4bn Space Command facility in Alabama

The Air Force Civil Engineer Center is seeking a single design-build contractor for a command-and-control facility and supporting data center at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama. The advance notice, posted to Sam.Gov on Oct. 13 and reported by Data Center Dynamics, puts the facility at 700,000 sq ft on 64 acres at the Army base in Madison County.

The Department of Defense, which the notice styles the Department of War, estimates the cost of designing, building, fitting out, commissioning, accrediting and equipping the USSPACECOM C2F at approximately $4bn. The mission-critical facility and its supporting data center are to support roughly 1,800 personnel. The contractor that wins the work has until December 2031 to deliver it.

Bidders must be US-based organizations with Top Secret Facility Security clearance and demonstrated success on projects of this scale, according to the notice. Applications are due Dec. 15, 2026.

The command-and-control center will need radio frequency shielding, high-altitude electromagnetic pulse protection, a sensitive compartmented information facility, and redundant and resilient infrastructure. Data Center Dynamics reports that details on the expected size of the facility and the data center have yet to be provided, leaving the split between command floors and data hall space to be settled by whoever wins the contract.

Redstone Arsenal hosts more than 75 tenant agencies, including US Space Command, NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and the FBI, and is the center of testing and development for the Army's missile programs. Space Command, responsible for military operations in outer space, was reestablished in 2019 with a warfighting focus.

The relocation of US Space Command headquarters from Colorado Springs to Redstone Arsenal has been in the works since 2021. After various delays, President Donald Trump announced in 2025 that the move was happening and would be completed by 2032.

For contractors weighing a bid, the notice bundles design through accreditation into a single award, and the Pentagon's own cost estimate runs to roughly $4bn before fixtures, furniture and equipment are counted separately in that same figure. The December 2026 application deadline and the December 2031 delivery date leave about five years between submission and handover, a schedule the notice treats as fixed.