diff --git a/app/build_npms.py b/app/build_npms.py
index 877916be..f3883c68 100644
--- a/app/build_npms.py
+++ b/app/build_npms.py
@@ -33,8 +33,10 @@ builder_js_image_name = "cerc/builder-js:local"
 @click.command()
 @click.option('--include', help="only build these packages")
 @click.option('--exclude', help="don\'t build these packages")
+@click.option("--force-rebuild", is_flag=True, default=False, help="Override existing target package version check -- force rebuild")
+@click.option("--extra-build-args", help="Supply extra arguments to build")
 @click.pass_context
-def command(ctx, include, exclude):
+def command(ctx, include, exclude, force_rebuild, extra_build_args):
     '''build the set of npm packages required for a complete stack'''
 
     quiet = ctx.obj.quiet
@@ -121,6 +123,8 @@ def command(ctx, include, exclude):
             # but that isn't available in Python 3.8 (default in Ubuntu 20) so for now we use dict.update:
             envs = {"CERC_NPM_AUTH_TOKEN": npm_registry_url_token}
             envs.update({"CERC_SCRIPT_DEBUG": "true"} if debug else {})
+            envs.update({"CERC_FORCE_REBUILD": "true"} if force_rebuild else {})
+            envs.update({"CERC_CONTAINER_EXTRA_BUILD_ARGS": extra_build_args} if extra_build_args else {})
             try:
                 docker.run(builder_js_image_name,
                            remove=True,
diff --git a/app/data/container-build/cerc-builder-js/build-npm-package.sh b/app/data/container-build/cerc-builder-js/build-npm-package.sh
index c8c1e810..207a41f3 100755
--- a/app/data/container-build/cerc-builder-js/build-npm-package.sh
+++ b/app/data/container-build/cerc-builder-js/build-npm-package.sh
@@ -24,12 +24,21 @@ package_name=$( cat package.json | jq -r .name )
 local_npm_registry_url=$1
 npm config set @cerc-io:registry ${local_npm_registry_url}
 npm config set @lirewine:registry ${local_npm_registry_url}
-npm config set -- ${local_npm_registry_url}:_authToken ${CERC_NPM_AUTH_TOKEN}
+# Workaround bug in npm unpublish where it needs the url to be of the form //<foo> and not http://<foo>
+local_npm_registry_url_fixed=$( echo ${local_npm_registry_url} | sed -e 's/^http[s]\{0,1\}://')
+npm config set -- ${local_npm_registry_url_fixed}:_authToken ${CERC_NPM_AUTH_TOKEN}
 # First check if the version of this package we're trying to build already exists in the registry
 package_exists=$( yarn info --json ${package_name}@${package_publish_version} 2>/dev/null | jq -r .data.dist.tarball )
 if [[ ! -z "$package_exists" && "$package_exists" != "null" ]]; then
-    echo "${package_publish_version} of ${package_name} already exists in the registry, skipping build"
-    exit 0
+    echo "${package_publish_version} of ${package_name} already exists in the registry
+    if [[ ${CERC_FORCE_REBUILD} == "true" ]]; then
+        # Attempt to unpublish the existing package
+        echo "unpublishing existing package version since force rebuild is enabled"
+        npm unpublish ${package_name}@${package_publish_version}
+    else
+        echo "skipping build since target version already exists"
+        exit 0
+    fi
 fi
 echo "Build and publish ${package_name} version ${package_publish_version}"
 yarn install