Plan a secure facility
before the first drawing.
Most of what decides a secure facility's schedule and cost is settled before design starts: the requirement, the accrediting authority, the site and the budget. We help you settle them in the right order, at an unclassified planning level.
Anyone who needs classified space and does not have it yet.
- Program offices with a requirement and no accredited space to perform it in.
- Cleared companies that need a secure facility to execute work they have won or are pursuing.
- Primes and integrators scoping a facility workstream inside a larger effort.
- First-time entrants who are not yet sure they need a secure facility at all. Start with the cleared work readiness check, which asks exactly that.
Planning questions answered late are the expensive ones.
A facility designed before anyone confirmed the requirement, the accrediting authority and the site tends to be designed twice. Stalled projects often trace back to a planning question that stayed open: a requirement nobody wrote down, an authority that heard about the project at kickoff and not again, a landlord question that was going to be easy.
Planning is where those questions are cheap. Time spent here protects the schedule that follows.
Five decisions, in the order that saves rework.
- Confirm the requirement. What classified work the space must support, and at what level, as the sponsoring organization states it. The requirement is the sponsor's to set; we help you get it written down.
- Identify the accrediting authority early. Who will accredit the space and what they will expect to see. A design coordinated with the AO/CSA before construction is what makes the finished space match the package that describes it.
- Assess the site. Owned or leased, building type, floor and adjacencies, landlord constraints, and what the building already has. Before you sign a lease, use the site selection checklist.
- Scope and budget. Size, starting condition, special requirements such as TEMPEST and RF or acoustic measures, region and schedule set a budgetary range. The project estimator gives one from a short intake, and what a secure facility costs explains the drivers.
- Choose the delivery path. Build to ICD-705, a modular or mobile unit, or access to existing accredited space. Then design and build, with the evidence assembled as the work proceeds: see secure facility design and build.
What we ask about first.
- The work the space supports, described at an unclassified level, and how many people will use it.
- The sponsor or contracting activity, and the accrediting authority if you know it.
- The site: address or candidate buildings, owned or leased, and any landlord terms you already have.
- The date the space has to be in use, and what drives that date.
- Budget assumptions already made, so we can tell you which ones the scope supports.
Unclassified only. Describe the project at a planning level. Do not send classified information or CUI through this website or by email.
Work through the planning questions yourself.
- Free tool
Project readiness
A short intake that maps what your project still needs before it can be scoped.
- Free tool
Site selection
What to check about a building before you sign the lease.
- Free tool
Project estimator
A budgetary rough order of magnitude from a short intake.
- Free tool
Facility clearance readiness
Whether a facility clearance can start, and what is still open.
- Guide
What a secure facility costs
The drivers behind the number and budgetary ranges.
- Guide
Accreditation
How accreditation works and who decides.
The public standards behind this page.
- ICD-705 and its implementing standards, Office of the Director of National Intelligence: dni.gov, Intelligence Community Directives.
- Technical Specifications for Construction and Management of SCIFs (TSPM), version 1.5.1, ODNI National Counterintelligence and Security Center: dni.gov, TSPM v1.5.1 (PDF).
These are the public standards secure facilities are designed and built to. The accrediting authority applies them to a specific facility and may set additional requirements; this page is general information, not a determination or legal advice.
DCSA, or the applicable Cognizant Security Agency, determines facility clearances. The applicable Accrediting Official or Cognizant Security Authority accredits the facility. We prepare, build, coordinate and document, and stay through the determination.
Start with the requirement.
Tell us what the space has to support and where it stands. Typical response in one business day.