NNSA approves new garage for lab

By Tris DeRoma
Wednesday, October 9, 2019 at 12:06 pm

The National Nuclear Security Administration approved a new parking facility for the Los Alamos National Laboratory Tuesday.

The structure was proposed by LANL. In a March 2019 document looking for interested subcontractors, the document described the project as a precast design that had a footprint of about 200,000 square feet. The garage would consist of four floors and provide 600 parking spaces.

It is not known yet who the contractor will be to build the garage, or if a contractor has yet been hired for the work. According to the document, the award is due late in the quarter for 2019, and all work is to be complete by the second quarter of 2020. 

The project will require some demolition and a relocation of utilities, according to the March 2019 document.

The garage will be an addition to the other parking structures on the site. 

There are two parking structures at Technical Area 3, one that is near the administration building and another near the SM-30 warehouse area. There are also several surface parking lots in and around TA-3. 

The new garage, according to the document, is to help with the lab’s plans for expansion over the next 10 years as it gears up to take on an expanded plutonium pit manufacturing program and other initiatives. Last year, the NNSA announced a plan where Los Alamos National Laboratory is expected to manufacture 30 plutonium pits a year by 2030 and the Savannah River Site is to manufacture 50 plutonium pits a year. 

“This new permanent facility will support the laboratory’s on-going diverse range of programs for a number of different sponsors and activities at Los Alamos National Laboratory,” the document said.

Triad National Security, the lab’s new management and operations contractor, has been hiring an average of 1,000 people a year as part of the lab’s continuing plan for expansion. 

During a September community forum, Triad CEO and LANL Director Thom Mason appealed to the surrounding community’s to help the lab find places for their employees in their communities. 

“Some of that reflects our investments being made in our production responsibilities at our TA-55 facility, but it’s much broader than that,” Mason said at the time. “It’s everything from parking lots and parking garages to roads and office buildings. It turns out that the 1,200 people we hired need a place to park, they need an office… they also need a place to live, and they want to know where they’re going to send their kids to school.”

Mason also said the lab is depending on Congress to help them revamp their infrastructure, some which is more than 50 years old.

Almost half of the lab’s 740 buildings were built before 1970; 474 of them were built before 1990 and 543 were built before 2000.