It is team-building time for companies interested in constructing a $1 billion data center for the National Security Agency at Camp Williams.

Some of Utah's biggest general contractors have teamed up with national counterparts to go after the lucrative primary contract to build the 1 million-square-foot center for the nation's intelligence community.

At least two of them -- Big-D Construction and Okland Construction -- have conducted open houses in the past month to find partners in the small-business community.

That's essential to getting the contract. Federal guidelines mandate that small businesses represent 70 percent of the project's subcontractors. Of that, portions must be allocated to businesses owned by women, people from disadvantaged groups, veterans and disabled veterans.

"It's a great goal," said Rob Moore, president and chief operating officer of Big-D, a Salt Lake City contractor that has forged an alliance with Balfour Beatty Construction (out of Dallas) and DPR Construction Inc. (Redwood City, Calif.).

"One of our big points is to keep this project in the hands of in-state workers," he added, especially because Data Center work will begin as the City Creek Center project wraps up in downtown Salt Lake City. "There are 14,000 unemployed construction workers in Utah... Everyone thinks Utah is doing real well [compared to other places], but in construction that's not the case. We have to push to keep this local."

His thoughts were echoed by officials from Okland and its joint-venture partner, Skanska USA, a Delaware company, after their open house earlier this month. Like Big-D's meeting, Okland's session attracted several hundred subcontractors looking for a piece of the action.

"In light of the current state of the economy, this is a project people will be very dependent on," said Okland vice president John Evans after the meeting. "It is our goal as a joint venture to meet or exceed the small-business goals set forth by the Army Corps of Engineers," which is overseeing the construction process for the National Security Agency.

Within the next two weeks, all of the contractor consortia vying for the primary construction contract -- worth more than $500 million on its own -- will submit general proposals outlining their qualifications.

In late March, the Corps of Engineers will pare the competition down to three to five contractor teams. Each then will have about four months to assemble a highly detailed plan about how it intends to build the facility, which revolves around 100,000 square feet of highly wired, atmosphere-controlled space where U.S. spy agencies can collect mountains of data for analysis.

To serve that security nerve center also will require a power system capable of producing 65 megawatts of electricity, water-treatment and supply facilities, fuel-storage sites, a facility for inspecting any vehicles allowed to enter the "anti-ram" fence around the site's perimeter, fire-suppression systems and 900,000 square feet of additional administrative office space.

And it will have to be built fast. The Corps of Engineers' timetable calls for the contract to be awarded in October, with construction completed by June 2012.

"That's warp speed," said Big-D's Moore.

When the contractor teams submit their proposals in July, they will have to specify how they intend to meet this accelerated design-build schedule and to identify the subcontractors who will help them accomplish this goal. Part of that identification process involves describing the capability of the subcontractors to perform their tasks.

"That's a real deep dive into the details of the program," said Skanska USA vice president Joseph Ryan. "At that point, you provide cost, hours, labor, all the forces you'll utilize on that front end. It's a very complex package that is like no other construction I've ever done -- and I've done arenas and stadiums before this."

Rounding up the right subcontractors is an integral part of this phase of the bid, he said, hence the outreach in the recent open houses.

"It is a pursuit. We wouldn't put a team together if we didn't have the best team. We're going to continue to hone this as we continue the pursuit and look for people to complement our team," Ryan added.

Rod Kaye sent a couple of estimators, the people who calculate the costs, materials and staff necessary to complete a project, to the open houses on behalf of his Layton-based company, NeZhoni Construction.

A Navajo, he is optimistic that one or more of the teams will turn to his electrical and general contracting firm so that it can comply with the Corps of Engineers' goal of having 6.2 percent of participating small businesses owned by people from disadvantaged groups.

"It doesn't matter who gets it, whether it's Okland, Big-D or whomever, they still need to meet their goals," Kaye said. "Hopefully, some [work] will come our way. My estimators went to the meetings to get more information about what they're going to be looking for, just so we can make sure we have everything in order."

Providing the kind of information they were looking for was precisely why Big-D held its open house, Moore said.

"The questions we got were, 'How do we gain access to the [Data Center] project? Is it too big for us? Can small firms really participate?' And the feedback we gave was, 'Yes, you can participate. You can add value. You don't have to be a big contractor to be part of this.' "

mikeg@sltrib.com