DAYTON, Ohio – After a brief delay, the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force’s fourth building is set to proceed.
In December 2013, Turner Construction Co. of Washington, D.C., was awarded a $35 million contract by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Louisville District, to build a new 224,000-square-foot building — similar in size and shape to the museum’s three existing hangars. The contract is being privately financed by the Air Force Museum Foundation, a non-profit organization chartered to assist in the development and expansion of the museum’s facilities.
Another contractor then filed an agency protest on the contract award, which was reviewed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and denied. The notice to proceed was then issued to Turner Construction Co.
Current plans call for construction to begin in early summer 2014 and be completed in the late summer 2015. A public opening is anticipated in 2016.
Museum Director Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Jack Hudson said he was glad to see that the situation has been resolved and is looking forward to moving ahead with the fourth building.
“These kinds of delays can happen sometimes with the government’s contract award process, but the fourth building is critical for us and therefore it is very important to get it right,” said Hudson. “Now we can proceed with the fourth building, which will allow us to share more chapters of the Air Force story with all of our visitors.”
The museum’s new building will house four major elements of the Air Force story: The Presidential Aircraft Gallery; The Research and Development Gallery; the new Space Gallery; and The Global Reach Gallery, which will feature the Air Force’s airlift, aeromedical and evacuation missions.
The National Museum of the United States Air Force is located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. It is free to the public and features more than 360 aerospace vehicles and missiles and thousands of artifacts amid more than 17 acres of indoor exhibit space. Each year more than 1million visitors from around the world come to the museum.
For more information: NationalMuseum.af.mil