Corps celebrates groundbreaking for new Missile Defense Agency headquarters

Story and photo by Marc Barnes
Belvoir Integration Office
Public Affairs Office

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers celebrated the groundbreaking of a new headquarters facility for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) during a ceremony at the future site of the agency’s command center Oct. 24.

The MDA Headquarters Command Center, as the building is formally known, will be a 99,000-square-foot, multi-story building designed to blend in with existing historical buildings on the south side of Fort Belvoir. The facility is being constructed as a result of the most recent Base Realignment and Closure Commission, whose recommendations were signed into law in November 2005.  The facility will cost more than $33 million, and is scheduled for completion in September 2010.

Representing the Corps of Engineers at the ground- breaking were Lloyd Caldwell, program director for North Atlantic Division, and Lt. Col. Eric Harter, operations chief for the Belvoir Integration Office.

Lt. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly, incoming director of the MDA, spoke briefly at the start of the ceremony and joined Caldwell and Harter, along with Col. Jerry Blixt, garrison commander at Fort Belvoir; Rear Adm. (retired) David Altwegg, executive director at MDA; and Brent Pratt, co-owner of Foulger-Pratt Companies, the general contractor on the project.

The general, who pinned his third star and assumed responsibility of the agency from Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry Obering last month, believes the site is an excellent location for practical and aesthetic reasons, and said the construction of a headquarters facility is a significant part of the agency’s history.

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