Secure facility programs
SCIF and SWE design, construction management, and renovation
Design, construction management, and documentation support for secure facility projects, led by people who spent decades inside accredited spaces.
- New build, renovation, expansion, and modular
- Concept design through accreditation turnover
- Cleared and vetted project personnel
- Full construction management, or security scope only
A secure build is a coordination problem before it is a construction problem
Most secure facility projects do not stall because someone hung the wrong drywall. They stall because a requirement was never written down, a change went through without review, or the record could not prove what was done and who was standing there when it happened.
That is the part we own. We sit between your accrediting official, your architect, your general contractor, and your security requirements, and we keep those four in the same conversation from the first design review through turnover. When the walkthrough comes, the answers are already documented.
Design
The design decisions everything downstream depends on
A secure space is not a room with a stronger door on it. It is a continuous boundary, and most of the expensive problems on a secure project trace back to a decision made about that boundary long before anyone poured concrete.
We are not your architect and we do not try to be. What we do is define what the boundary has to do, work it through with your design team while the drawings are still cheap to change, and produce the security design that lives inside it. Every decision gets written down as it is made, so the reasoning is already on the record when your accrediting official asks for it.
Where the space sits in the building, and what shares a wall, a floor, or a ceiling with it. This is the cheapest decision on the project and the most expensive one to reverse.
How the boundary gets built so that it stays continuous, including everything above the ceiling line and below the floor where the perimeter is easiest to quietly break.
Every duct, conduit, pipe, and cable that crosses the boundary, identified during design and treated deliberately rather than discovered during an inspection.
Keeping conversations inside the space, including the paths sound takes that are not walls. Retrofitting this after the fact is one of the more painful fixes there is.
Entry points, vestibules, visitor routing, and how people actually move through the space on an ordinary Tuesday. A boundary people work around is not a boundary.
Mechanical, electrical, and fire protection routed so the building can do its job without compromising the boundary. This is where most trade conflicts start.
What we handle
Six places a secure project usually needs help
Construction Security Plan
We draft the plan, get it in front of your accrediting official early, and keep it current as the design moves. A plan written once and filed away is the most common reason a project gets sent back.
Drawing review and trade coordination
When the design is already someone else's, we read the drawings the way an accrediting official will and keep the trades pointed the same direction, so conflicts get resolved on paper instead of in the field.
Construction surveillance and escort
Vetted personnel on site, access logs kept properly, material and tool controls, and a chain of custody for the components that need one. Our people have run these programs from the government side.
Accreditation documentation
We assemble the record your accrediting official will actually ask for, with the supporting evidence attached and organized. Photographs, logs, test results, and sign offs, gathered as the work happens rather than reconstructed afterward.
Inspection support
We walk the interim inspections with you, including the 50 and 90 percent milestones, build the punch list, and close it out before anyone schedules the final accreditation walkthrough.
Renovation inside operational space
Phasing, temporary controls, and coordination so cleared work continues while construction happens around it. This is a different problem from a ground up build and it gets planned differently.
Where we plug in
Five phases, and the earlier you call the cheaper it gets
These are numbered because the order genuinely matters. Requirements caught in phase one cost a conversation. The same requirement caught in phase four costs a wall.
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01
Concept and design
Siting, adjacencies, and perimeter strategy while they are still cheap to change. We tell your architect what the boundary has to do before the boundary exists.
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02
Pre construction
Construction Security Plan, personnel vetting, site controls, and the submittal path agreed with your accrediting official before anyone breaks ground.
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03
Construction
Surveillance, escort, material control, and a running record. Changes get reviewed against the plan as they come up instead of being discovered at the end.
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04
Pre accreditation
Interim inspections walked, punch list built and closed, systems tested, and the documentation package assembled and reviewed before it goes anywhere.
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05
Accreditation and turnover
We walk the final inspection with you, hand over a clean record, and stay available for the questions that surface in the first months of operation.
Running the job
Construction management that speaks both languages
Most construction managers know how to run a building. Most security people know what the boundary has to do. On a secure project the expensive failures happen in the gap between those two, when a sequencing decision, a substituted product, or an approved change order quietly undoes a requirement nobody on site was tracking.
We can run the job as construction manager on the owner's side, or work alongside the CM you already have and own only the security scope. Either arrangement works. What does not work is nobody owning the gap between the schedule and the accreditation.
Writing the security scope into the bid documents so it gets priced properly the first time. An underpriced security scope is a change order waiting to happen.
Sequencing the security work against the other trades and against the inspection milestones, so a wall does not close before what is inside it has been verified.
Reading what the contractor proposes against what the requirements actually say, before it is installed rather than after. Substitutions are where a boundary quietly gets weaker.
Every change gets looked at for security impact before it is approved. A change that saves two weeks and costs you the accreditation is not a saving.
Walking the work while it is still open, documenting it as it happens, and catching the small things before they turn into punch list items at the worst possible moment.
As builts, operations and maintenance documentation, warranties, training, and the accreditation package, handed over as one organized record instead of six emails.
The harder version
Renovating a space that is already accredited
Building a new secure facility is a scheduling problem. Renovating one that is operating, with cleared people working in it every day, is a different discipline. The perimeter cannot simply be opened. Uncleared trades cannot simply walk in. And whatever gets touched has to be provable afterward.
We plan renovations around the facility staying useful: work sequenced into phases, temporary boundaries and compensating controls where the permanent ones come down, escort coverage sized to the trade schedule, and a documentation trail that survives your next inspection.
- Phasing that keeps cleared work running
- Temporary boundaries and compensating controls
- Escort coverage matched to the trade schedule
- Uncleared trade management and material screening
- Re inspection and re accreditation support
- A record that holds up at the next review
The faster version
Modular SCIFs for rapid deployment
Not every secure space can wait on a construction schedule, and not every building will let you cut into it. A modular SCIF is built as a self contained structure and assembled inside your existing space, which moves most of the work off site and onto a clock you can actually plan around.
That changes the schedule, not the standard. We handle the same things on a modular project that we handle on a stick built one: the design coordination, the surveillance during install, the inspections, and the accreditation package. The difference is how much of the risk sits in a factory instead of in your building.
Where modular usually makes sense
You do not own the structure, the landlord will not let you touch it, and the lease is shorter than the program. A modular unit goes in and, when the time comes, comes back out.
A contract award or program start date that landed before the construction schedule could accommodate it. Off site fabrication runs in parallel with your site prep instead of after it.
Space you need for the length of a program rather than the length of a building. The facility can be taken down and stood back up somewhere else, which stick built cannot do.
Remote locations, buildings that stay operational throughout, or projects where getting enough cleared and escorted trades on site is the real bottleneck.
Why GSMG
People who have been on the other side of the walkthrough
Decades inside accredited spaces
Our secure facility team is built from former counterintelligence agents and government security professionals. They have written these plans, run these programs, and sat on the inspecting side of the table.
Licensed engineers in house
All of our engineers are New York State licensed Professional Engineers working across intrusion, life safety, access control, surveillance, building automation, and evacuation. Stamped drawings come from the same team that does the install.
One team for the whole boundary
The systems that cross a secure perimeter are the ones that cause trouble. We design, install, and commission intrusion detection, access control, and surveillance, so nobody is coordinating between three vendors who blame each other.
Working since 2011
GSMG has been designing and installing security and life safety systems since 2011, on projects from single floor buildings to structures over one million square feet.
Common questions
Before you call
When should we bring you in?
As early as you can. The cheapest version of this work happens during concept and design, when the perimeter is still a line on a drawing. We are regularly brought in mid construction and that is fine, but the fixes are more expensive and the schedule has less room in it.
Do you replace our general contractor or our CM?
Never the general contractor. Your GC builds. The construction manager role is a different question: we can take it on the owner's side and run the schedule, submittals, and trades against the security requirements, or we can leave the CM role where it is and own only the security scope. Most CMs are glad someone else owns that piece.
Which standards do you work to?
Whichever ones your accrediting official applies. The governing document depends on the type of facility and the program behind it, and your AO has the final word on interpretation. Part of what we do early is get that settled in writing rather than assumed.
Can you work directly with our accrediting official?
Yes, with your authorization. Having one point of contact who speaks the AO's language and understands the build tends to shorten review cycles considerably.
We already have a facility. Can you help with an expansion?
Yes. Expansions and renovations inside operating space are a large part of what we do, and they are planned differently from new construction. See the renovation section above for how we approach it.
Is a modular SCIF accredited the same way?
Your accrediting official applies the same requirements either way. What changes is where the work happens and how predictable the schedule is, not the standard the finished space has to meet. The design, the inspections, and the documentation package all still happen.
Do you handle the alarm and access control too?
Yes. Intrusion detection, access control, and surveillance are designed and installed by our own engineers and technicians, and signals can be monitored by our UL listed Central Station. One team owns everything that crosses the boundary.
Tell us where the project stands
Whether you have a concept sketch or a stalled inspection, the first conversation is short and costs nothing. Bring the drawings if you have them.