Page 1 GAO-12-770R Military Base Realignments and Closures

United States Government Accountability Office 

Washington, DC 20548

June 29, 2012

Congressional Committees

Subject: Military Base Realignments and Closures: The National Geospatial-Intelligence 

Agency’s Technology Center Construction Project

As part of the Department of Defense’s (DOD) Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) 

2005 effort, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)—a defense agency—

was required to close various satellite facilities and relocate them to a new NGA facility

at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. This relocation included consolidating some data-storage 

capabilities into a data-storage center known as the Technology Center. DOD intended 

to use the BRAC 2005 process to transform the military, foster coordination among the 

services, and reduce excess infrastructure in order to produce savings.1 At the outset of 

BRAC 2005, DOD viewed BRAC 2005 as a unique opportunity to reshape its 

installations and realign its forces to meet defense needs for the next 20 years. This 

was the fifth round of base closures and realignments undertaken by DOD since 1988, 

and it was the biggest, most complex, and costliest BRAC round undertaken up to that 

point. To implement this round, DOD executed hundreds of BRAC actions that affected

over 800 defense locations and included the planned relocation of over 123,000 

personnel. By law, the BRAC 2005 recommendations were to be implemented by 

September 15, 2011, 6 years from the date on which the President submitted his base 

closure and realignment report to Congress.

2 Under Recommendation 168 of the report 

of the 2005 Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission, NGA was required to

close some facilities and relocate them to a new NGA facility, now known as NGA 

Campus East.

3

 

1

The BRAC process is governed by the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Act of 1990, referred to 

as the “BRAC statute,” originally passed as Title XXIX of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal 

Year 1991, Pub. L. No. 101-510, (1990) (10 U.S.C. § 2687 note). It has subsequently been amended 

many times, including in 2001, when Congress authorized BRAC 2005 as part of the National Defense 

Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2002, Pub. L. No. 107-107 (2001).

The 2005 BRAC Commission report noted that the onetime costs to 

implement this recommendation would be about $1.1 billion, but the actual cost rose to 

2

Section 2904 of the BRAC statute requires DOD to implement all BRAC recommendations within 6 years 

of approval by the President and transmittal to Congress, which, for BRAC 2005, occurred on September 

15, 2005.

3

Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission, 2005 Defense Base Closure and Realignment 

Commission Report, vol. 1 (Arlington, Va.: September 2005).
Page 2 GAO-12-770R Military Base Realignments and Closures

over $2.5 billion, because new requirements were added for supporting facilities that 

NGA identified as essential to mission operability.4

Implementation of this recommendation to close and relocate some facilities to the new 

NGA Campus East resulted in NGA deciding to consolidate some data-storage and 

information-technology (IT) capabilities into a Technology Center to be built on the new 

campus. NGA officials told us that prior to the construction of this center, NGA had 

limited experience establishing or working with consolidated data-storage facilities. The 

Office of Management and Budget had not yet issued its recent guidance on datacenter consolidation.

5

 NGA had IT equipment in many smaller rooms consisting of 

general office space, which NGA referred to as “computer rooms.” According to NGA 

officials, these computer rooms had been established gradually over time in older 

legacy NGA buildings although, in 2004, industry and NGA began moving toward moreefficient, single-use data-storage facilities known as data centers. The Technology 

Center was completed in 2009, before the rest of the NGA campus, to facilitate the 

transfer of data before personnel moved to the new campus. NGA had originally 

planned to construct and use the third and fourth floors of this four-story facility to meet 

its consolidated data-storage needs. However, it ultimately used only the fourth floor 

and therefore did not “fit out” the third floor.6 Nonetheless, the DOD budget request for 

Fiscal Year 2012 sought approximately $54.6 million in additional military construction 

funding for NGA to fit out the as-yet-unused third floor of the Technology Center to 

accommodate the need NGA identified to expand data-storage capability. This need for 

additional data-storage capability is unrelated to the BRAC consolidation. Consequently, 

in the conference report accompanying the National Defense Authorization Act for 

Fiscal Year 2012,7 the conferees expressed concern that the original BRAC military

construction project may not have complied with the requirement that military 

construction projects include all construction work necessary to produce a complete and 

usable facility.8 The conference report directed GAO to examine this and related issues. 

 

4

Originally, it was estimated that recommendation 168 would save approximately $535.1 million over a 20 

year period, but because requirements increased, these savings were not achieved; in fact, the project 

incurred a net cost. However, the recommendation was also intended to optimize NGA mission 

efficiencies, improve readiness, and enhance mission partner coordination, while addressing antiterrorism 

and force-protection deficiencies. 5

The Office of Management and Budget issued guidance for federal data center consolidation in February 

2010. 6

Fitting out the floor refers to the installation of items, such as raised floors, fire detection and suppression 

systems, air conditioning and uninterruptable power supplies, which would enable IT equipment such as 

servers to be installed. In deciding to not fit out the third floor, the associated emergency electrical 

generator as well as water chiller units at the respective on-campus utility plants were also not installed. 7

H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 112-329, at 761 (2011). 8

Section 2801(a) of title 10, U.S. Code, defines the term “military construction project” to include “all 

military construction work ... necessary to produce a complete and usable facility or a complete and 

usable improvement to an existing facility (or to produce such portion of a complete and usable facility or 

improvement as is specifically authorized by law).”
Page 3 GAO-12-770R Military Base Realignments and Closures

To help manage the large BRAC 2005 effort across DOD, the Principal Deputy Under 

Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics issued guidance in 

September 2005 that assigned business managers to be responsible for implementation 

of each BRAC 2005 recommendation. The assigned business managers were generally 

the service or defense agency with facility management authority at the site of 

construction. In the case of the NGA Campus East project, since the facility was to 

reside on part of Fort Belvoir—an Army site—the Department of the Army was assigned 

as business manager for the project. NGA was to be the only organization located on 

this campus and the primary user of the facility. In other instances, the assigned 

business manager was the primary user of the facility, rather than a military service. The 

September 2005 guidance also required business managers to develop and submit 

business plans for implementing the BRAC 2005 recommendations they were 

responsible for, including construction details. These business plans were internal DOD 

documents intended to help ensure that each plan’s respective BRAC 2005 

recommendation was implemented efficiently and effectively.

We have issued a number of reports on issues related to military base closures and 

realignments, conducting studies on key factors contributing to BRAC results, the need 

for more-complete information and strategies to guide disposal efforts, and increases in 

costs and decreases in savings estimates. A list of GAO’s prior work related to military 

base closures and realignments since the Secretary of Defense submitted his proposed 

BRAC actions to the BRAC Commission for review in May 2005 can be found at the end 

of this report. This report examines (1) the extent to which DOD carried out the original 

scope of work for the NGA Technology Center and whether the building it constructed 

constitutes a complete and usable facility and (2) the scope of work for the proposed 

new military construction project to fit out the third floor of the NGA Technology Center 

and DOD’s rationale for this project.

Scope and Methodology

To determine the extent to which DOD carried out the original scope of work for the 

NGA Technology Center and whether the building it constructed constitutes a complete 

and usable facility, we reviewed budget and project documents and interviewed officials 

from NGA, the Army, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. In particular, we 

focused our information-gathering efforts on NGA’s identified need for data-storage 

capability, the original scope of work for the NGA Technology Center, and the final 

status of that construction project as of September 2011, the end of the BRAC 2005 

implementation period. We also identified guidance, directives, and policies that govern 

the process for BRAC military construction projects and compared the process used for 

the NGA project to the procedures outlined in those documents. To identify the scope of 

work for the proposed new military construction project to fit out the third floor of the 

NGA Technology Center, and DOD’s rationale for this project, we reviewed budget and 

project documents and interviewed officials from NGA, the Department of the Army 

BRAC Office, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense 
Page 4 GAO-12-770R Military Base Realignments and Closures

about NGA’s identified need for data-storage capability and the scope of work for the 

new military construction project. 

We conducted this performance audit from March 2012 through June 2012, in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards 

require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to 

provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit 

objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our 

findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.

Summary

NGA modified the original scope of work9 for the Technology Center but met the original 

data-storage requirement. DOD has limited written guidance on what constitutes a 

complete and usable facility. However, NGA, Office of the Secretary of Defense, and 

Army officials believe the Technology Center constitutes a complete and usable facility

because it meets its intended purpose of creating 10 petabytes of data storage to 

replace the data-storage capabilities at the sites that were closed by the implementation 

of BRAC Recommendation 168. Although the construction of NGA’s new Technology 

Center was planned as part of the implementation of a BRAC recommendation to 

consolidate various NGA satellite locations at a new NGA facility, advances in datastorage technology led NGA to revise downward the space in the Technology Center

that it would need to fit out to accommodate its data-storage needs. NGA also increased 

the electrical density in the new facility, even though the amount of space was reduced.

As a result, NGA modified the original scope of work for the center during the course of 

the BRAC construction project, and one of the two floors of the new building originally 

planned for data storage was not fitted out. NGA officials told us that they believed 

completing both floors would have provided more data-storage capability than their 

identified requirements called for and therefore would have gone beyond the intent of 

the BRAC recommendation to consolidate existing capability. The original 

documentation of the requirements for the NGA construction project lacked some 

details such as the identification of the Technology Center as a primary or supporting 

facility, and there was a lack of clarity regarding which DOD organization should be 

responsible for oversight of this project. As a result, the original decision to change the 

scope of the project by not fitting out the third floor of the Technology Center was not 

communicated to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, to the project’s business 

manager—the Department of the Army—or to Congress. Therefore they were unable to 

participate in that decision. NGA did provide these officials with information regarding 

the decision at a later date.

 

9

We use the term “scope of work” throughout this report to describe the project as specified in budgetrequest documents and associated plans throughout its development and construction, as opposed to a 

contractual scope of work.
Page 5 GAO-12-770R Military Base Realignments and Closures

In January 2011, NGA proposed a new military construction project to address longterm data-storage needs that would utilize the empty third floor of the technology center.

Looking ahead after the BRAC construction project was complete, NGA projected that 

its data-storage requirements would grow exponentially over the next 10 years due to 

factors such as planned intelligence collection sensors that were scheduled to be 

deployed over the next 10 years and the increasing use of “cloud computing” 

technology, which drives up data-storage requirements because data formerly stored on 

desktop computers will reside in data centers, in order to allow for remote access 

capabilities. NGA subsequently requested non-BRAC military construction funding to 

complete the fit-out of the unused third floor. This project was authorized in the National 

Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012,10 and NGA officials told us that 

construction is expected to begin in August 2012. 

We provided DOD with a draft copy of this report to obtain agency comments. In 

response DOD provided technical comments, which we have incorporated as 

appropriate. 

NGA’s Technology Center Was Completed with a Modified Scope of Work but 

Still Met the Original Data-Storage Requirement, and NGA Believes It 

Constitutes a Complete and Usable Facility

NGA’s Technology Center was completed with a modified scope of work but still met the 

original data-storage requirement, and the agency believes it constitutes a complete 

and usable facility. The NGA Technology Center was performing its mission as of the 

end of September 2011. Nonetheless, while NGA’s data-storage requirements were 

stable during the Technology Center’s construction, NGA modified the scope of work for 

the center multiple times because the space it originally projected it would need for data 

storage was later reduced due to advances in data-storage technology. NGA officials 

told us that at the beginning of the project NGA had identified a data-storage 

requirement of 8 petabytes,

11

 

10Pub. L. No. 112-81, § 4601 (2011).

and that in 2008 this requirement was modified to add 

about 2 additional petabytes of data storage that had been overlooked when the original 

requirement was generated. However, this modification did not add additional storage 

capability beyond what existed at the satellite locations being consolidated into the 

Technology Center during the course of the project. NGA had calculated this datastorage requirement based on the data-storage capabilities then in use across all of the 

NGA satellite locations that were to be consolidated into the NGA Campus East in 

response to the BRAC recommendation. However, the space needed to accommodate 

this data-storage requirement was later reduced due to technological advances in IT 

components becoming smaller while electrical density increased, and in response NGA 

11A petabyte is a unit of information equal to about 1 quadrillion bytes, 1 million gigabytes, or 1 thousand 

terabytes. One petabyte of data is roughly equivalent to the amount of information that can be stored in 

about 20 million four-drawer filing cabinets.
Page 6 GAO-12-770R Military Base Realignments and Closures

changed the construction plans for the Technology Center and ultimately decided not to 

fit out the third floor.

During the planning phase for a construction project like the NGA Campus East project, 

officials identify certain details, such as the primary and supporting facilities to be 

constructed. DOD organizations requesting funding for construction projects must fill out 

a DD Form 1391—which is the principal document that describes the organization’s 

facility needs and justifies its request for funds.12 The DOD Financial Management 

Regulation requires that the DD Form 1391 identify each primary and supporting facility 

that must be built to complete the construction project, along with some specifications 

and cost information for each facility.13 Although BRAC construction projects are funded 

from a BRAC-specific appropriation rather than military construction appropriations, the 

DOD Financial Management Regulation also requires a DD Form 1391 for each 

construction project included in annual budget requests.14 At the beginning of this 

project, NGA’s original DD Form 1391 for the NGA Campus East project did not provide 

complete information regarding the project’s scope of work. For example, it did not 

identify each primary and supporting facility. In February 2006, NGA submitted a single

DD Form 1391 for the entire NGA Campus East project to the Office of the Secretary of 

Defense for inclusion in the budget-justification documents submitted to Congress; this 

DD Form 1391 included three buildings, but it did not include the Technology Center. It

did not fully describe all of the facility needs or identify each supporting facility that DOD 

had determined was required to complete the NGA campus. The Technology Center 

was not identified or discussed as a needed supporting facility. NGA officials told us that 

they did not include detailed information—such as identifying the Technology Center as 

a supporting facility—because they were at a very conceptual design phase at that point 

and did not have that information. 

In March 2006, the original conceptual IT plan for the NGA Technology Center called for 

constructing 108,000 square feet to meet NGA’s data-storage requirements. This scope 

of work was based on the aggregate physical space currently in use to meet IT needs at 

the existing satellite facilities that were to close and relocate to the Technology Center.

It did not account for the efficiencies that would be achieved by consolidating these 

data-storage spaces into one facility designed exclusively for this purpose, such as the 

ability to more-densely configure servers. In December 2006, NGA modified the plan for 

the Technology Center to call for 55,000 square feet of space—with electrical density 

increased from 50 watts/square foot to 150 watts/square foot—to meet these same 

data-storage requirements, and this revised plan was used to develop the detailed 

 

12DOD Financial Management Regulation 7000.14-R (DODFMR), vol. 2B, ch. 6, Military 

Construction/Family Housing Appropriations (December 2010) designates that a DD Form 1391, Military 

Construction Project Data, is used by DOD to submit requirements and justifications in support of military 

construction funding requests to Congress. While this chapter of the DODFMR has been amended since 

the events described in this report occurred, the standards for the DD Form 1391 have remained 

substantially the same.

13DD Form 1391s for the NGA Campus East project were submitted on an annual basis. 14DODFMR, vol. 2B, ch. 7, Base Realignment and Closure Appropriations (December 2010). While this 

chapter of the DODFMR has been amended since the events described in this report occurred, the 

requirement to complete a DD Form 1391 has remained substantially the same.
Page 7 GAO-12-770R Military Base Realignments and Closures

design for a four-story Technology Center building. The top two floors were to provide 

55,000 square feet to house the necessary data-storage capabilities. NGA planned to 

complete the fourth floor of the Technology Center first, to provide initial data-storage 

capability by adding items such as a raised floor and uninterruptable power supplies to 

prepare the space for the installation of information technology equipment. Once the 

fourth floor was completed, it planned to fit out the third floor in the same way. 

In 2007, additional actions were taken on the basis of NGA’s revised design plans, 

including ordering structural steel for the four-story facility in October 2007. Contracting

documentation for this period refers to the completion of the third floor as an “option,” 

and its Program Management Plan—which defines the scope of work and overall plan 

for completing the project—calls for the completion of the third floor some time in fiscal 

year 2012 or 2013. NGA officials told us that in February 2008 the IT contractor hired to 

put the IT equipment into the completed space determined that the 10 petabyte datastorage requirement could be accommodated using the fourth floor alone, because 

advancements in data-storage and server technology would allow them to store the 

same amount of data in less space. These officials told us that, as a result of the IT 

contractor’s determination, the leadership of the NGA Campus East Program 

Management Office, which was charged with managing the entire construction project,

decided not to fit out the third floor of the center. This reduced costs for the building by 

an estimated $31.4 million to $37.15 million by not incurring costs associated with 

construction activities such as installing raised floors, additional generators, and cooling 

systems for the third floor.

15 However, NGA officials noted that, because the structural 

steel had already been ordered and other construction activities were under way, fully 

redesigning the Technology Center at that point to eliminate one floor would have cost

hundreds of millions of dollars due to the effect on the entire NGA Campus East project 

and delayed its completion. Figure 1 shows a time line with the Technology Center’s 

evolving IT and square footage requirements arrayed across the top and the progress of 

the construction process underneath. 

 

15While these costs were not incurred, according to DOD officials the NGA Campus East construction 

project was exceeding original budget estimates and it consumed the savings from not fitting out the third 

floor. 
Page 8 GAO-12-770R Military Base Realignments and Closures

Figure 1: Timeline of the NGA Technology Center Project 

NGA officials did not notify the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Department of the 

Army BRAC office, or any of the congressional defense committees regarding its 

decision to change the scope of the Technology Center by not fitting out the third floor

because there was no clear requirement to do so. Additionally, the construction project’s 

annual business plans, which were drafted by NGA, did not include any information 

regarding its decision not to fit out the third floor. NGA submitted these business plans 

to the Department of the Army, and the Army submitted them to the Deputy Under 

Secretary of Defense for Installations and Environment. The officials from the Office of 

the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Installations and Environment told us that 

they required the business managers to regularly brief them on their progress in 

implementing their BRAC recommendations. According to these officials, issues related 

to the construction of the Technology Center were not mentioned during any of these 

briefings.

Officials from the Office of the Secretary of Defense told us that they learned of NGA’s

decision not to fit out the third floor of the Technology Center when NGA submitted a 

new DD Form 1391 in February 2011 seeking military construction funding to fit out the 

third floor after all. Officials from the Department of the Army’s BRAC office learned of 

the decision when they were taking a tour of the completed NGA Campus East in 2011. 

NGA officials told us that they did not provide notification of these changes because 
Page 9 GAO-12-770R Military Base Realignments and Closures

they did not believe they had a requirement to do so. Although the Army was the 

business manager for the NGA Campus East project, Army officials told us they did not 

provide the same level of detailed oversight that they typically provided to BRAC 

projects relocating or consolidating Army facilities because they believed others were 

doing so. Army officials told us that for all BRAC projects for Army facilities the Army 

required notification and approval for any user-requested changes in project scope, 

regardless of size. For example, they told us that during the construction of a datastorage facility for the U.S. Army Forces Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, U.S. 

Army Forces Command decided to change the scope of the project to provide additional 

square footage for increased data-storage capability. Although U.S. Army Forces 

Command notified Army Headquarters of this proposed change in scope, the Army did 

not approve the change. Consequently, U.S. Army Forces Command completed the 

project to the initial specifications. Army officials told us that they believed the Office of 

the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Installations and Environment was providing 

detailed oversight of the NGA project, including review and approval of changes in 

scope. However, officials in the Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for 

Installations and Environment told us that since the Department of the Army had been 

assigned as the business manager, the Army was responsible for providing detailed 

oversight of the NGA project. Additionally, because the project requirements documents 

did not fully describe the facility needs or identify each supporting facility that was to be 

built to complete the entire NGA Campus East project, it is now difficult to effectively 

evaluate any cost or scope changes to the project—including the decision not to fit out 

the third floor—and determine if congressional notification was required.16

 

16Section 2703 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008, Pub. L. No. 110-181 

(2008) amended the BRAC statute by specifying notification requirements for changes in cost and scope 

for BRAC 2005 military construction projects. The amended law prohibited DOD from increasing or 

reducing authorized costs for military construction projects carried out using BRAC funds by more than 20 

percent or $2 million, whichever was less, of the amount specified for the project in the conference report 

accompanying the Military Construction Authorization Act authorizing the project. In addition, it barred 

reductions in the scope of work for such projects of more than 25 percent from the scope specified in the 

most recent budget documents for the project. The amended law also provided that these limitations did 

not apply if the Secretary of Defense determined that cost or scope increases or reduction needed to be 

made “for the sole purpose of meeting unusual variations in cost or scope,” and provided notification to 

the congressional defense committees in advance of the variation. The Deputy Under Secretary of 

Defense for Installations and Environment—the office responsible for oversight of BRAC projects—issued 

additional guidance in February 2008 delegating authority and responsibility to DOD components to 

provide these notifications to the congressional defense committees when required. This guidance further 

states that the military services and defense agencies must coordinate all notifications to Congress with 

certain directorates within the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Because 

NGA did not inform them of its change of plans for fitting out the third floor of the 

Technology Center, Congress and the Office of the Secretary of Defense did not have 

an opportunity to provide input regarding this decision. Officials from the Office of the 

Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Installations and Environment told us that if they 

had been made aware of the change of scope to the Technology Center, they might 

have recommended the use of non-BRAC funding for the completion of the building 

shell for the third floor of the facility, because BRAC funding can be used only for a 

project that results in a facility that is required in order to fulfill the project’s designated 

BRAC purpose. While we are not making any recommendations in this report because 
Page 10 GAO-12-770R Military Base Realignments and Closures

of the limited scope of our review—we examined only one case—the experience of this 

construction project and the lack of clarity regarding notification requirements suggest 

that, should there be any further BRAC rounds in the future, improved clarity regarding 

oversight of BRAC-driven military construction projects could be helpful. This may be 

particularly true if the business manager is a different component than the facility user.

Our ongoing work looking at BRAC issues, including a review of lessons learned from 

the 2005 BRAC experience, will consider this issue. 

NGA officials also told us they believed that—even without the complete fit-out of the 

third floor—the NGA Technology Center was a complete and usable facility. As a result, 

they decided not to modify the original four-story design. There is limited guidance

available on what constitutes a complete and usable facility, but one important 

determination is generally whether a given building, structure, or other improvement to 

real property satisfies the need that justified carrying out the construction project.17 NGA 

officials determined that the Technology Center, as constructed, was a complete and 

usable facility because—even with only three of the four floors fitted out—it meets its 

original intended purpose of reconstituting the IT capabilities of the sites closed under 

BRAC Recommendation 168. Officials from the Office of the Secretary of Defense and 

the Army also told us they believe the facility, as constructed, is complete and usable. 

While a fully fitted out third floor was part of the original plan for the center, NGA officials 

told us that completing it would have provided more data-storage capability than their 

identified requirements called for and therefore would have gone beyond the intent of 

the BRAC recommendation to consolidate the existing capability. 

NGA Identified a Need to Complete the Technology Center’s Original Scope of 

Work to Address Its Growing Need for Additional Long-Term Data Storage on 

the Basis of a Detailed Internal Study 

In January 2011, NGA proposed a new military construction project to address longterm data-storage needs that would utilize the empty third floor of the technology center. 

From 2008 through 2010, NGA conducted a detailed internal study reviewing the 

volume of new data the agency was then receiving and was expected to receive in the 

future. This volumetric study examined key NGA and non-NGA intelligence agency 

programs that would be coming online over the next 10 years and would require datastorage and IT capabilities. NGA officials told us that this study, conducted in three 

phases, was comprehensive in the sense that it included a review of all current and 

planned intelligence collection sensors on all platforms—space-based, national and 

tactical airborne-based, and ground-based—that were scheduled to be deployed over 

the next 10 years. This study also reviewed the data-storage implications of the 

increasing use of “cloud computing” technology, which drives up central data-storage 

requirements because data formerly stored on desktop computers will reside in data 

 

17For example, GAO determined in an appropriations law decision, B-234326.15, Dec. 24, 1991, that the 

Air Force should have financed the construction of multiple housing trailers as a single military 

construction project because the trailers separately did not to meet the identified Air Force housing

requirement, and thus were not complete and usable.
Page 11 GAO-12-770R Military Base Realignments and Closures

centers, in order to allow for remote access capabilities. NGA officials told us that this 

study led NGA to conclude that it would need hundreds of additional petabytes of datastorage capability over the next 10 years. To address these newly identified datastorage requirements, NGA developed a proposal to fit out the currently unused third 

floor of the Technology Center to provide additional data-storage capability. Figure 2 

shows the currently unused third floor of the Technology Center in January 2012. 

Figure 2: Unused Third Floor of the NGA Technology Center 

To fit out the third floor, NGA will install items such as raised floors, fire-detection and 

suppression systems, air conditioning, and uninterruptable power supplies to enable the 

installation of IT equipment such as servers.18 Since this work entails new construction, 

NGA determined that it was appropriate to use military construction funding. Further, it 

determined that, since the project would exceed $2 million, the military construction 

funding must be specifically authorized by Congress through the military construction 

appropriation process. In February 2011, NGA submitted a new DD Form 1391 seeking 

congressionally authorized military construction funding for this project. Approximately 

$54.6 million in military construction funding for this project was authorized by Congress 

in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012,

19

 

18Additionally, associated backup generators and water-chiller units will be added at the respective oncampus utility plants.

and NGA officials told 

us that construction is expected to begin in August 2012. According to officials,

construction is expected to take approximately 12 to 15 months to complete due to the 

lead time required to build and install the required electrical generators. 

19Pub. L. No. 112-81, § 4601 (2011).
Page 12 GAO-12-770R Military Base Realignments and Closures

Once fitted out, the third floor of the Technology Center will join NGA’s three main data 

centers: the completed fourth floor of the Technology Center; the NGA Data Center 

West near St. Louis, Missouri; and a contractor-owned and -operated Interim Transition 

Capability facility located in Ashburn, Virginia. According to NGA officials, the Interim 

Transition Capability was intended to temporarily facilitate the transition of data to the 

new Technology Center and was originally scheduled to operate only until Fiscal Year 

2013. However, those officials told us that the lease for the Interim Transition Capability 

facility was recently extended through Fiscal Year 2018 in order to provide sufficient 

data-storage capability to address newly forecast data-storage requirements. Some of 

these NGA data-storage facilities are also planned to host information for non-NGA 

intelligence agencies. For example, according to NGA officials, the Director of National 

Intelligence’s Intelligence Community Strategy calls for approximately 50 percent of the 

data hosted on the third floor of the Technology Center, once completed, to be from 

non-NGA intelligence community agencies. As another example, NGA is planning to 

host Defense Intelligence Agency data as well as NGA data at the Interim Transition 

Capability facility. 

Agency Comments

We are not making recommendations in this report. We provided a draft copy of this 

report to DOD for review and comment. In response DOD provided technical comments, 

which we have incorporated as appropriate. 

________ 

We are sending copies of this report to interested congressional committees; the 

Secretary of Defense; the Secretary of the Army; the Director of National Intelligence; 

and the Director, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. In addition, the report will be 

available at no charge on GAO’s website at http://www.gao.gov. 
Page 13 GAO-12-770R Military Base Realignments and Closures

If you or your staff have any questions concerning this report, please contact me on 

(202) 512-4523 or by e-mail at leporeb@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of 

Congressional Relations and Public Affairs are on the last page of this report. GAO staff 

who made major contributions to this report include Harold Reich, Assistant Director; 

Pamela Davidson; Michael J. Hanson; Joanne Landesman; Gregory Marchand; Brian 

Mazanec; Charles Perdue; and Amie Steele. 

Brian J. Lepore 

Director, Defense Capabilities and Management 
Page 14 GAO-12-770R Military Base Realignments and Closures

List of Committees

The Honorable Carl Levin 

Chairman 

The Honorable John McCain 

Ranking Member 

Committee on Armed Services 

United States Senate

 

The Honorable Daniel Inouye 

Chairman 

The Honorable Thad Cochran 

Ranking Member 

Subcommittee on Defense 

Committee on Appropriations 

United States Senate

The Honorable Howard P. “Buck” McKeon 

Chairman 

The Honorable Adam Smith 

Ranking Member 

Committee on Armed Services 

House of Representatives 

The Honorable C. W. Bill Young 

Chairman 

The Honorable Norman Dicks

Ranking Member 

Subcommittee on Defense 

Committee on Appropriations 

House of Representatives
Page 15 GAO-12-770R Military Base Realignments and Closures

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Page 16 GAO-12-770R Military Base Realignments and Closures

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Page 17 GAO-12-770R Military Base Realignments and Closures

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614. Washington, D.C.: May 3, 2005.

(351713)
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