Within a month after the Army Historical Foundation’s (AHF’s) mid-September 2016 National Museum of the United States Army groundbreaking ceremony, the Army Corps of Engineers began site preparation for the 84-acre Museum Campus. The landscape was quickly transformed.
Activities ranged from tree-clearing and stump removal to installation of erosion and sediment control measures to allow leveling of the future roadways, and placement of permanent storm water structures and pipes for management of rainwater runoff from the Museum. Water pipes from American Water, electrical service from Dominion Virginia Power, and a natural gas line from Washington Gas are being installed to provide utility services to the Museum. The main entrance to the Museum site was cut in to allow construction equipment direct access from the Fairfax County Parkway.
In early March AHF President Lieutenant General Roger Schultz (USA-Ret.) gave Clark Construction Group, LLC
instructions to proceed with construction. Footings for the building were excavated, and the concrete foundation for the basement was poured during the month of April. Coordination for the integration of the Museum’s macro exhibits into the construction schedule is underway because these large artifacts—a World War I French tank, a World War II Sherman tank, a Landing Craft Vehicle and Personnel (LCVP), and a Bradley Fighting Vehicle—will need to be brought into the Museum’s footprint before the structural steel and walls can be erected. In addition, a twenty-foot high mock-up of the Museum’s exterior has been erected on site to evaluate quality control and validate the means and methods that will be use to construct the Museum’s exterior stainless steel panels and glazing.
“These are all tangible signs of real progress, especially when you see sections of the facility springing up above the ground,” noted AHF Chairman General Gordon R. Sullivan (USA-Ret.). “No question about it—vertical construction is proof positive that the National Army Museum is going to be built.”
