ConDig (25-Jan-18).  Harper Construction Co Inc has landed a $127.9 million contract to build a maintenance hangar for the F-35 Lightning fighter jet in Miramar, San Diego, California.

Under the design-bid-build contract with the Naval Facilities Engineering Command, the San Diego-based company will build an aircraft maintenance hangar, an aircraft parking apron and aircraft parking apron expansion for the first wave of incoming F-35 aircrafts.

The maintenance hangar will require a special foundation and will include a secure access program facility, overhead bridge crane and elevators.

The project will also include all pertinent site improvements, site preparations, mechanical and electrical utilities, telecommunications, emergency generator, landscaping, irrigation, drainage, parking and exterior lighting.

Slated to be completed by January 2020, the scheme also contains eight unexercised options, which if exercised would increase the contract value to $131.5 million.

This contract was competitively procured via the Navy Electronic Commerce website, with seven bids received.

The F-35 program is the most expensive military weapons system in history, but has been much criticized inside and outside government due to a series of design flaws that have delayed the jet’s full rollout.

Pentagon officials have called for the need to reduce the F-35’s $406.5 billion projected acquisition cost and its projected $1.2 trillion price tag for long-term operations and support through 2070.