Army Awards GEM Building $26.1 Million for New Castle Maintenance Complex

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers picked the family-owned Pennsylvania contractor to design and build an area maintenance support activity and vehicle shop, with completion set for Oct. 16, 2028.

First Published: August 6, 2026, 2:15 PM ET

NEW CASTLE, PENNSYLVANIA — GEM Building Contractors & Developers Inc., a family-owned Pennsylvania builder in business since 1952, won a $26.1 million Army contract to construct a new maintenance complex in New Castle, Pennsylvania, as announced on war.gov.

The firm-fixed-price award covers design-bid-build construction of an area maintenance support activity and a vehicle maintenance shop, with a total cumulative face value of $26.1 million. Fiscal 2026 military construction, Army Reserve funds of $26.1 million were obligated at the time of the award, and work will unfold in New Castle with an estimated completion date of Oct. 16, 2028.

“We Design. We Build. We Transform,” the company states on its website according to gembuilders.com, describing commercial construction, design-build and general contracting services delivered across Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers office in Louisville, Kentucky, serves as the contracting activity under identifier W912QR-26-C-A024. Bids were solicited over the internet, and eight offers were received, a level of competition that signals a healthy contractor field for regional military construction work.

The award benefits GEM and its local labor pool while giving the Army Reserve a modern facility to service and maintain vehicles and equipment. Area maintenance support activities consolidate repair operations for reserve units, reducing downtime and travel for equipment upkeep. For a firm rooted in New Castle, the contract secures more than two years of steady work and anchors payroll in Lawrence County.

Founded as Gale E. Measel Building Contractors, the company began in residential work before reorganizing in 1979 into G.E.M. Building Contractors & Developers Inc. and expanding into commercial projects according to gembuilders.com. Now run by a third generation, the builder has completed the RIDC Business Park, The New Englander, Preston Motors and electrical union training centers in Lawrence and Beaver counties according to gembuilders.com. Much of its recent portfolio has centered on schools and healthcare facilities.

The deal ranks as the largest recorded in GEM’s federal history and its first Department of Defense award of 2026. It falls between the 2026 Army portfolio year-to-date minimum of $9.1 million and the maximum of $53,859,843,289, placing it near the bottom of the Army’s spending range for the year. The award also stands as the 24th Department of Defense contract issued in Pennsylvania during 2026.

For the average reader, the project translates federal military construction dollars into local jobs, subcontracts and materials orders in a small Pennsylvania city. Public spending of this size on a single facility rivals the annual capital budgets of many mid-sized US municipalities.

This has happened before. The Army Corps of Engineers routinely awards firm-fixed-price construction contracts to regional builders for reserve maintenance facilities, and GEM has previously built training centers for electrical unions in the same region.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Louisville will oversee performance and milestone payments through construction. A completion date of Oct. 16, 2028 governs the schedule, though no date has been announced for any follow-on award tied to the site.

Military construction in western Pennsylvania has shaped the region before. New Castle sits within a corridor that supplied steel and munitions during both World Wars, when local mills forged plate and shells for the war effort in the 1910s and 1940s. That industrial base drew federal contracts that sustained thousands of workers, and its decline in later decades left communities dependent on new sources of public investment. Contracts like this one continue that long pattern of federal spending reaching into the Ohio River Valley economy.

This contract represents the 1st contract awarded to GEM Building Contractors & Developers Inc., in 2026, bringing the company’s total contract value for the year to $26,080,966. It is also the 24th Department of Defense contract awarded in Pennsylvania during 2026. Because this is the first award to GEM Building Contractors & Developers Inc. recorded in the database, it establishes the company’s initial benchmark 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 3 Department of Defense contracts issued nationwide on August 6, 2026.