1st Cav rides $50M renovation to Fort Hood HQ

​FORT HOOD – Temple-based MW Builders has landed a $49.8 million contract to renovate the 1st Cavalry Division headquarters building at Fort Hood.

Brian Dosa, Fort Hood’s public works director, said the extremely needed project will take about three years, with the first year spent on building a temporary trailer "city" that will house the division staff while the renovations are underway.

Work on the temporary buildings — to go up on the south side of the Fort Hood’s Soldier Development Center, a few blocks away from the headquarters building — is expected to begin in November.

When the temporary buildings are ready — potentially in the fall of 2016 — the division staff will move into them as the headquarters building is renovated, expected to take two years. If the renovation goes as expected, the staff could move back into the building in late 2018.

While the building’s exterior will not look much different from what it looks like now, the inside of the 145,000-sf headquarters will expand another 10,000 feet by removing an inner courtyard and converting it into additional floor space.

The 1st Cavalry Division Headquarters "is the oldest division HQs facility in United States Forces Command," according to the statement from the division. "The building has been operational since its construction in 1983."