Scope a secure facility
before you bid.
Seven planning-level questions return a budgetary planning range for SCIF and secure-facility work, the answers of yours that are carrying the cost, and the method that produced the range. Built for security officers, ISSMs and program offices sizing a budget line before design money is committed.
What this estimate is
- A budgetary planning range for a described secure facility.
- Enough to size a budget line, test affordability, or decide whether to pursue a build at all.
- Produced from a published method you can read in full below the result.
- Computed in your browser. Nothing is transmitted unless you choose to send it.
What it is not
- A construction bid. A bid prices a drawn facility on a surveyed site.
- An accreditation guarantee. The applicable Accrediting Official or Cognizant Security Authority accredits the facility.
- A final engineering estimate. That follows design, survey and a named risk position.
- A government determination of any kind.
Do not enter classified facility details. Planning-level inputs only.
Five answers, in the order they matter.
There is no honest flat price per square foot for accredited space. Two facilities of identical size can differ by a factor of three, and the reasons are predictable. These are the inputs the estimator weighs, and the ones worth pinning down before you commit to a budget line.
| Driver | Why it moves the number | What tightens the range |
|---|---|---|
| Accreditation posture | The protection level the requirement demands sets the construction standard, the detection, and the response expectations. It is the widest single swing in the model. | The handling requirement, confirmed with the AO/CSA rather than assumed. |
| Starting posture | A new build, a retrofit of existing space and an expansion are three different jobs. A retrofit inherits whatever the previous team did or failed to do, and a fully built interior has to be undone before it can be rebuilt. | An honest assessment of what exists today, including any prior accreditation attempt. |
| RF and acoustic requirements | Shielding is the largest of the additive items. The attenuation your accreditation requires determines the construction method, and the gap between a modest acoustic requirement and a full RF-shielded enclosure is large. | The attenuation standard, if the AO/CSA has named one. Not every facility needs shielding at all. |
| Usable secure square footage | Scales the whole envelope. Fixed costs such as perimeter, entry control and mechanical penetrations amortize across larger spaces, so the rate per square foot is not constant. | Secure square footage separated from total leased or owned area. |
| Region and schedule | Cleared labour is a thin market and its depth varies sharply by metro. Compressing a schedule buys overtime, parallel trades and expedited material on top of that. | The metro, and a required occupancy date with whether it is contractual or aspirational. |
The estimator names which of your answers is carrying the cost rather than repeating this list. For a firm figure, write us directly or start with the readiness check.
The four gaps between a range and a price.
A budgetary range prices a facility as described. A bid prices a facility as drawn, on a surveyed site, in a named market, on a named date. Those are different objects, and the distance between them is almost always one of these four things.
- Site conditions found during survey. Structure, mechanical capacity, floor location and perimeter continuity are assumptions in an estimate and facts in a bid.
- Requirements named after the estimate. Attenuation, storage and detection assumed from experience, then named differently by the AO/CSA, change the construction method rather than the finish.
- Scope added during design. Doors, penetrations, equipment rooms and pathways multiply quietly between a description and a drawing set.
- Market movement. Cleared labour availability and material pricing move between the estimate and the award, and the range does not know when your award lands.
An estimate that lands far from a bid is usually not a broken model. It is one of these four facts arriving late. Pinning them down early is worth more than a tighter estimate.
We scope, design, build, prepare and coordinate.
Salian Defense scopes secure facilities, then delivers them: ICD-705 design, construction, preparation for accreditation and sustainment under one accountable team, with the accreditation package prepared as the work happens and coordinated with the AO/CSA. Where the blocker is a facility clearance rather than a building, Salian helps you identify and prepare for the sponsorship path.
This estimator is powered by Vates Cognition, the secure facility scoping, cost and compliance engine in the Praesidium Suite. The arithmetic behind the range is described in full under the result above.
The applicable Accrediting Official or Cognizant Security Authority accredits the facility. DCSA or the applicable Cognizant Security Agency determines facility clearances, the Authorizing Official authorizes systems, and licensed architects and engineers seal what the law requires them to seal. This estimator is planning support and is not a determination by any of them.
- You keep the range. Nothing is sent, nothing is stored. Take the band to your budget line.
- You check whether the project can start. The readiness check works through the requirement, the space, the building, the people and the evidence, and returns what is missing before construction should begin.
- You send the scope. Consent, then a Salian program manager reviews it and comes back with a read on feasibility and sequence. Nothing on that call is binding.
- The blocker is a clearance, not a building. Start with the FCL readiness check or the FCL Navigator.
The estimator, answered.
What is a budgetary planning range?
Why is the estimate a range instead of a number?
Why do estimates diverge from construction bids?
What drives the cost of a secure facility the most?
Do I have to give an email to see the estimate?
What must not be entered into this estimator?
What the cost drivers trace to.
The drivers in this model are the requirement categories that the governing documents for accredited space impose on construction. What a specific facility must meet comes from the applicable AO/CSA, not from this page.
- ICD 705, Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities The Intelligence Community Directive establishing the standard for SCIF accreditation and reciprocity.
- ICS 705-1 and ICS 705-2 The Intelligence Community Standards for the physical and technical security of SCIFs, and for their standards and procedures.
- IC Technical Specifications for ICD/ICS 705 The technical specification set that construction, acoustic protection, shielding, intrusion detection and access control are designed and inspected against.
The rates behind the model are Salian's own, drawn from its secure-construction work, and are refreshed periodically. They are not a published index and are not a quote.
A range is a starting point, not an answer.
When the band is close enough to act on, the next step is a survey and a scope, not a tighter estimate. Tell us what you are trying to accomplish and we will tell you what it actually takes.