SRI supported the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in developing professional office space for a national Engineering Center (EC) to serve as FAA National Airspace Implementation (ANI) program headquarters. The ANI EC will be a state-of-the art engineering facility with stringent security and systems requirements.

Working with an evaluation team of experts from throughout the FAA, SRI drafted environmental requirements that were included in the FAA Request for Offers technical specifications and criteria for evaluating and grading offers. The FAA received a number of offers to host the EC from airport authorities, local governments, and states. As part of the multidisciplinary evaluation team, SRI assisted the FAA in evaluating the degree to which offers of property and/or buildings met the EC technical specifications. Based on that evaluation, the FAA selected a short-list of offers for further consideration. SRI then prepared a NEPA environmental assessment analyzing seven potential EC sites in Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Texas—along with the alternative of taking no action. For each potential location, SRI analyzed possible impacts on land use and coastal zone management, geology and soils including clearing of vegetation, water resources, farmlands, air quality, biological resources, transportation, noise, energy, visual and light emissions, cultural resources, recreational resources, socioeconomics, solid and hazardous waste, and construction-related impacts. The environmental assessment recommended a number of measures to prevent or reduce potential impacts.