BL Harbert Awarded $37.6 Million Army Deal for F-35 Secure Facility in Arkansas
The Birmingham, Alabama, builder will construct an F-35 Special Access Program Facility in Fort Smith, Arkansas, under a firm-fixed-price contract funded by the Army National Guard, the Defense Department said.
BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA — BL Harbert International LLC, a Birmingham, Alabama, construction firm, received a $37.6 million Army contract to build a secure F-35 facility in Arkansas, the Defense Department said Aug. 3, 2026 as announced on war.gov.
The firm-fixed-price award carries a total cumulative face value of $39 million and covers an F-35 Special Access Program Facility, a hardened site for classified work tied to the stealth fighter. The Army solicited bids over the internet and drew six offers before it selected the company. Work will run in Fort Smith, Arkansas, with an estimated completion date of Jan. 31, 2029.
Fiscal 2026 military construction, Army National Guard funds of $37.6 million covered the obligation at the time of the award. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth, Texas, is the contracting activity under contract number W9127S-26-C-A009. The award marks the sixth contract to BL Harbert International LLC in 2026, lifting the company’s total federal contract value for the year to $660.2 million. It stands as the 37th Defense Department contract in Alabama during 2026, and it falls within the Army’s 2026 range, which runs from a year-to-date minimum of $9.1 million to a maximum of $53.9 billion.
Special Access Program facilities support the most tightly controlled defense projects, and the Fort Smith site connects to the Air National Guard’s F-35 mission in the state. Ebbing Air National Guard Base in Fort Smith serves as a foreign military sales training center for the F-35 and other fighters, a role that draws sustained federal construction spending to the region. Contractors, local workers and regional suppliers stand to gain from the multiyear build, while taxpayers carry the cost through appropriated military construction funds.
Most readers will never enter such a facility, yet the spending shapes local economies. A project of this size supports hundreds of jobs across a two-and-a-half-year timeline and channels federal dollars into western Arkansas, a pattern repeated wherever the Pentagon expands its footprint.
This has happened before.BL Harbert International LLC has repeatedly won federal building work, including five prior awards in 2026 alone, and the Army Corps of Engineers routinely contracts private firms for classified and conventional construction across military installations.
The next decision points rest with the Army Corps of Engineers, which will oversee construction milestones through the estimated completion date of Jan. 31, 2029. No date for the facility’s activation or a follow-on award has been announced.
Military construction contracts in Arkansas have shaped the state’s defense role for generations, as happened before. Fort Chaffee, adjacent to Fort Smith, opened in 1941 and processed hundreds of thousands of soldiers during World War II, later housing Vietnamese refugees in 1975 and Cuban refugees in 1980. The installation’s mission narrowed after a 1995 base realignment, yet the surrounding region kept its military ties, and today the Fort Smith area anchors an F-35 training footprint that keeps federal builders returning decade after decade.
This contract represents the 6th contract awarded to BL Harbert International LLC, in 2026, bringing the company’s total contract value for the year to $660,213,563. It is also the 37th Department of Defense contract awarded in Alabama during 2026. While this is not the largest contract ever awarded to BL Harbert International LLC, whose record stands at $203,926,827, it is notable within the Army portfolio. Specifically, it falls between the 2026 Army portfolio’s year-to-date minimum of $9,051,490 and maximum of $53,859,843,289. Overall, this award was announced among 15 Department of Defense contracts issued nationwide on August 3, 2026.
OpenTopoMap / Natural Earth – Fort Smith, Arkansas