ARLINGTON, Va., - Amid the steady hum of construction noise, the National Guard Bureau's 250,000-square-foot building project at Arlington Hall continued here today, with nearly 18-month's labor showing obvious progress.
"Watch your step," said Army Lt. Col. Rodney Graham, the project manager, as he walked through the cavernous cement structure, hopping over metal scraps, ducking under pipes and maneuvering around wood crates that hold the building's exterior glass.
"This is one of the significant architectural features," he said, pointing to a stairway at the south tip of the building.
There, steel steps ascend into the open air, past cement beams, conduit and a galvanized floor. "It will be full glass … all the way up," he said. "So, you will have an incredible view of the surrounding community."
Graham said at some point, a large, "tricorne" element of blue glass - representing the Minuteman's hat - will cap the top of the building, where the Guard Bureau's joint staff will call home.
The official view is that the combined, $150 million projects here and at the Air Guard Readiness Center on Joint Base Andrews in Maryland are going up on time and on budget.
Jefferson Plaza One has been NGB's official home since 1998. However, the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure law required NGB's joint staff to move nearly 1,200 Guardmembers, federal workers and contractors to new digs.
This summer, officials said the remaining Air Guard directorate personnel at JP1 will move to Joint Base Andrews, and the Guard Bureau personnel will move either to the Pentagon starting in December or to Arlington Hall next spring.
For NGB, $98 million enables them to build onto the existing 15-acre campus that holds the Army Guard Readiness Center. They broke ground in late 2008.
Since that time, Graham has overseen nearly every aspect of the construction. Lately, he and his team have spent a lot of time meeting with the dozens of departments and contractors to scan through piles of blueprints at their jobsite trailer.
The group met with public affairs personnel among others recently. They spoke about secure networks and soundproof rooms, furniture, media centers and wiring.
At this point, major changes in the plans can be costly and destructive, Graham said, adding that they want to jump on any potential budget or schedule breakers immediately. The number of changes they can submit to the contractors limits them.
The roughest time in the construction, so far, said Graham, was when they weathered a gauntlet of rainstorms last spring, which flooded their excavation site and repeatedly stopped the job.
The National Capital Region's "Snowpocalypse" did not help matters either. "Since then, we've been able to catch up on our schedule," he said. "And we are just about on track now."
The job just passed a 50 percent construction-in-place marker, he said.
Graham walks the jobsite regularly. He descended a set of stairs into what will become a joint operations center, where today there is a massive cement wall and some string lighting. In a year's time, huge video screens will project the Guard's operations from across the globe.
These underground office areas, including a fitness center, will encompass more than half of the entire building. He said force protection requirements and local building restrictions buried nearly two-thirds of the office space underground.
Above ground, the building sections will be equally impenetrable with blast proof walls and glass, he said, but those features are not visually cumbersome, but rather they are integrated into the building's structure and landscaping.
Also not as noticeable are some of the building's environmentally friendly aspects.
Graham said they are hoping to achieve "Silver" certification from the U.S. Green Building Council's (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED).
Here, that means a green roof, automatic and natural lighting, storm water management, stewardship of resources and dozens of other energy and environmental enhancements.
With the final days at JP1 approaching, office buzz is giving way to action. More than two dozen coordinators in NGB's directorates are beginning to assist personnel with the imminent relocation.
Officials are collecting feedback to manage and revise transportation plans for expanded shuttle services to and from Arlington Hall.
At the Air Guard Readiness Center, moving day looms much closer.
The $52 million project, which broke ground in late 2007, is nearing completion with furniture coming in this month and Airmen hanging up their hats sometime in August.
Their BRAC expansion includes administrative offices and a cafeteria.
Ben Lawless, the chief of the engineering division in the Air Guard's Installation and Mission Support directorate, said an additional 20,000-square-foot addition, funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, would provide meeting and conference space for Air Guard units that come to do business there.
It's well known there that Airmen have worked many years with their main directorate offices separated between JP1 and the ANGRC. The expansion project puts an end to that.
"All Air Guard functions will be out here in this campus, all 1,200 of us, and it will be a one-stop-shop for all units visiting from the field," said Lawless.
The ANGRC's location on Joint Base Andrews also provides the enhanced force-protection measures for the entire staff, which is required by 2005 BRAC law.
Some have said that Air Guard's new, four-story structure resembles the bow of a space ship, with its shiny angled skin of dark-blue glass. The new building is docked to the existing Conaway Hall ANGRC, which opened in 1985.
Like the Guard Bureau, Lawless said they also employed innovative technologies into their building, such as under floor distribution of power and telecommunications. That allows a flexible office environment and open floor plans through movable walls and furniture, said Lawless.
They, too, are planning for a LEED "Sliver" certification with even higher hopes of achieving the much tougher "Gold" status.