HANGAR TO BECOME RESEARCH SPACE

WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE

An $11.6 million renovation BASE — will convert a vacant hangar into office space at Wright-Patterson, a project official says.

The hangar conversion will create three stories of space for the Air Force Research Laboratory, according to Scott Kopittke, an 88th Civil Engineer chief of design for the project.

The Army Corps of Engineers, which handled the contract, awarded the deal to Messer Construction Co., which has a Dayton area office.

The work will turn space in the high bay into a consolidated research site and conference rooms, according to Kopittke.

The project will add 9,500-square-feet of office space and replace an aging three-decade-old heating and cooling system that needed rising levels of maintenance, according to Wright-Patterson spokesman Daryl Mayer.

Work was expected to begin in January and take up to 20 to 24 months to complete, officials said.

Crews constructed the building in 1953 and the last renovation added more space in 2010, according to Wright-Patterson.

Three bidders vied for the latest deal. An Army Corps spokeswoman said the company’s winning bid was “deemed the best value to the government,” but would not comment on other bid amounts, saying in an email it was “procurement sensitive information.”

Headquartered at Wright-Patterson, AFRL has roughly 6,200 employees at the Miami Valley base and a workforce of about 10,400 at 40 sites around the world.

At Wright-Patterson, AFRL has four directorates, including aerospace systems, materials and manufacturing, sensors, and the 711th Human Performance Wing.