SMXG complex opens March 25 Published March 18, 2011 By Wayne Crenshaw 78th ABW/PA ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. -- The 402nd Software Maintenance Group, which develops, engineers, tests and maintains software for a wide range of aircraft and other weapons systems, will cut the ribbon next week on a new building which will connect the group's three existing facilities and make it a massive, single complex. The combined structure will have 350,000 square feet of floor space - the equivalent of six football fields - and be called Bldg. 229. In the complex, what had been Bldg. 226 will be Bldg. 229 South, Bldg. 227 will be Bldg. 229 North, Bldg. 230 will be Bldg. 229 East, and the new facility will be Bldg. 229 Central. Many of the approximately 200 employees who will work in what will become Bldg. 229 Central - which includes 25,000 square feet of lab space, primarily for software maintenance, and electronic warfare and associated workloads - started moving in to the facility Feb. 1, said Brian Daniel, the group's director of facilities and security. He said the additional space is desperately needed. "We have multiple new workloads and some existing workloads have expanded," he said. The $21 million project was overseen by the Army Corp of Engineers and 78th Civil Engineer Group, as well as 402nd SMXG personnel. The general contractor was McKnight Construction of Augusta.