Michigan hired a construction manager before Congress finished paying for the job. The State Administrative Board approved a recommendation on 1 September to award Lansing-based The Christman Co. a $140.9-million construction management contract for major airfield work at Selfridge Air National Guard Base, northeast of Detroit in Harrison Township. It’s the first big package inside an estimated $985 million of construction planned through 2031.
What the airfield package covers
The scope comes from Michigan’s RFP: roughly 1,100 linear feet of hardened overrun and a 200-foot blast pad to accommodate a northward shift of the runway thresholds, reconstruction of runway shoulders, replacement of threshold and end lighting and signage, realignment of approach lighting, navaids and glide slope equipment, and relocation of the north perimeter road and fencing. Taxiways A and B extend north to the new overrun in portland cement concrete with asphalt shoulders, edge lighting, signage and markings.
The $140.94 million is a not-to-exceed figure covering preconstruction, construction, contingency, general conditions, bonds, insurance and the CM fee. It isn’t a hard bid price, and the value the trades will actually see is materially lower.
Mead & Hunt is airfield designer on an $11.15-million professional services contract including construction administration and UFC compliance verification. Tetra Tech holds $5.79 million for environmental work including the joint permit application and Phase 2 wetland mitigation credits. Construction documents finish this month, construction starts in March 2027, and Phase 1 completes in December 2029.
Why the sequencing is the interesting part
Michigan lawmakers appropriated $152 million in state general funds in May specifically so the state could hire a construction manager and start work without waiting. The federal money is queued behind it: the House version of the FY2027 defense authorization provides $110 million for runway encroachment mitigation, $28 million for the Taxiway Alpha extension and $24 million for Taxiway Bravo, on top of $10 million each in FY2026 for encroachment design and F-15EX beddown.
Enabling work is already in the ground a mile away. Michigan and Macomb County broke ground on 17 August on relocating and reconstructing William P. Rosso Highway between I-94 and Jefferson Avenue, including relocating the Irwin Drain, concrete box culverts and a roundabout at Town Center Boulevard. Dan’s Excavating of Shelby Township won that openly bid $27.8-million highway and drainage package.
A state letting a CM-at-risk airfield contract on its own general funds ahead of the federal authorization that pays for the rest is a tactic worth copying anywhere a beddown schedule is driving the program.
What to discount
The base is swapping A-10 Thunderbolt IIs for F-15EX Eagle IIs and KC-135 Stratotankers for KC-46 Pegasus tankers, with first F-15EX units expected in 2028 and KC-46 units in 2030. But the $985 million program figure comes from a 127th Wing article rather than an appropriations document, and the federal share sits in the House version of the FY2027 NDAA. Authorized is not appropriated, and neither is law yet.
March 2027 is also a tight start when construction documents finish this month, on an active airfield with navaids, glide slope and wetland mitigation in scope. All of it has to be sequenced while Selfridge keeps operating. Brigadier General Leah Voelker, the 127th Wing commander, called the transition a complex, carefully sequenced effort, which is the polite version. Phase 1 alone runs to December 2029.
Phasing around live operations is the recurring theme in transport work right now; Amtrak is taking the same approach at Chicago Union Station, proving level-boarding details on a dormant platform before touching one that carries trains.