Daniel Island contractor lands $252 million to modernize elevators at VA hospitals

A contractor with an office on Daniel Island will spend the next several years rebuilding elevators at veterans hospitals from Manhattan to Albuquerque.

In September, the Department of Veterans Affairs signed 44 contracts worth a combined $252.4 million with Elevated Technologies Services LLC to modernize elevators at VA medical centers in more than 20 states, according to a Charleston Business Report tally of USAspending.gov records. The VA obligated the full amount when it signed the contracts, the records show. The records list the company’s address on Seven Farms Drive.

The awards came out of the VA’s Elevator Modernization Initiative, one nationwide competition that bundled the work at roughly 101 VA medical centers and facilities. From Sept. 3 to Sept. 25, the VA signed 85 contracts under it worth about $442.5 million, according to the Charleston Business Report tally. Elevated Technologies won about 57% of that money.

What the VA is buying

In a notice first posted in April, the VA said it wanted prime contractors “to perform complete turnkey elevator modernization work at 101 Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical centers and facilities nationwide.” The work covers hydraulic and traction elevators and related systems, and it is meant to deliver “fully functional, code-compliant, and non-proprietary elevator systems,” the notice said.

Each line item in the solicitation covered one VA facility. The VA’s Program Contracting Activity Central, based in Independence, Ohio, ran the competition in two steps: technical proposals first, then sealed bids from the companies whose proposals passed. It set aside the first 13 line items for service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses and left the rest open to companies of any size.

Eight companies cleared the technical step, according to a VA notice posted in June: Elevated Technologies, TK Elevator Corp., ATTA Elevators USA, Skyline Elevator Works, Veteran Elevated Solutions, M2 Federal, ESA South and Armstrong Elevator Co.

Where the Daniel Island company won

All 44 of Elevated Technologies’ awards came in the unrestricted portion, where it bid against companies of every size, federal records show. Federal spending data lists the company as service-disabled veteran-owned and as other than a small business.

Its largest award, $17.5 million, covers the VA’s Margaret Cochran Corbin campus in Manhattan, with work scheduled into March 2031. Others include $15.9 million for the Eugene J. Towbin Healthcare Center in North Little Rock, Arkansas; $15.2 million for the VA medical center in West Haven, Connecticut; and $13.9 million for the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Hospital in Montrose, New York. Eight of the company’s contracts are at VA sites in New York and six are in Texas.

The company also won the local job: an $842,710 contract signed Sept. 15 to modernize elevators at the Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center in downtown Charleston, with work scheduled through Aug. 17, 2027.

Federal records list a single offer for 13 of the company’s 44 awards, including the Manhattan, North Little Rock and Charleston projects, and two or three offers for each of the rest.

TK Elevator Corp. of Addison, Texas, came closest, with 19 contracts worth $91 million. ATTA Elevators USA of Highlands Ranch, Colorado, won nine worth $52.6 million. The other 13 went to Skyline Elevator Works, M2 Federal and Veteran Elevated Solutions, including all 10 set-aside line items awarded so far.

A fast-growing federal contractor

The VA work caps a steep climb. Federal agencies obligated $311.1 million to Elevated Technologies in fiscal 2026, which ended Sept. 30, according to USAspending.gov. That compares with $68.3 million in fiscal 2025 and $15.9 million in fiscal 2020. The VA accounted for $276.5 million of the fiscal 2026 total.

Most of the rest came from the General Services Administration, which manages federal office buildings and courthouses. GSA obligated $28.4 million to the company in fiscal 2026. Its jobs included elevator modernizations at federal buildings in Fort Myers, Florida, Victoria, Texas, and Fairbanks, Alaska, and a $203,090 elevator machine rebuild at the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in Manhattan, records show.

Defense Department awards reach the federal database after a 90-day delay, so recent military work may not be counted yet.

The company has kept adding federal work. It won a $556,100 site-wide elevator maintenance order from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, signed Sept. 23 for work starting Oct. 1, and a $370,975 elevator services order from the VA in Lexington, Kentucky, signed Oct. 8, the records show.

What comes next

The VA contracts run on separate schedules. The company’s shortest jobs are due in mid-2027, while its largest run into March 2031, according to the records.

The 85 contracts signed so far fall short of the roughly 101 line items the VA planned, and the records do not show whether more awards are coming. The Government Accountability Office’s bid protest docket lists no protests of the solicitation.

For the Daniel Island company, the result is a backlog that stretches across the VA system, with crews needed in places as far apart as Sheridan, Wyoming, and Huntington, West Virginia.