Veterans Affairs Architect-Engineer Services (VAAES)

The Department of the Army Corps of Engineers Engineering Support Center Huntsville awarded a 100% small business set-aside Master IDIQ for Veterans Affairs Architect-Engineer Services on January 23, 2025, with a shared ceiling of $249 million and ordering authority through January 22, 2030.

The vehicle remains active with 3 years 6 months of ordering authority remaining. Nine task orders have been awarded since inception, with seven issued in 2025 and two in 2026, suggesting momentum has slowed materially in the current year. All $6 million in combined task-order potential value has been obligated across seven distinct primes. The portfolio divides sharply between two mega-orders—Guidon-Ses JV LLC at $4.7 million and AE Works LTD at $1.3 million—and five primes holding only minimum guarantees of $2,500 each. Guidon-Ses and AE Works alone account for $6 million of the vehicle's $6 million obligated portfolio. The three remaining primes (Miller-Remick - Michael Baker International JV, Health Facility Solutions Company, and Sherlock, Smith & Adams Inc.) hold no substantive orders.

Scope is full-service specialized medical facility architecture, engineering, and planning services supporting new construction, renovation, additions, alterations, and demolition of Veterans Affairs facilities throughout the Contiguous United States, Alaska, Hawaii, and outlying areas. Recent task orders include site survey and building information modeling work at Jerry L. Pettis Memorial Veterans Hospital in Loma Linda, California, and design-build services for VA Canandaigua Phase 3 in New York.

Customer concentration is extreme: the Engineering Support Center Huntsville placed 7 of 9 orders worth only $18,000 combined, while the Engineering District Los Angeles placed one $4.7 million order and the Engineering District Louisville placed one $1.3 million order. All task orders awarded to date are firm-fixed-price, with typical individual orders ranging from $2,500 minimum guarantees to $4.7 million. Despite the vehicle's substantial $249 million ceiling and five-year ordering window, ordering velocity and customer engagement remain nascent. The small business set-aside structure creates a pool-of-one dynamic in practice: only two firms have won substantive work, and five awardees hold zero executable demand.