USIP Headquarters Project: A Progress Update

November 27, 2007

From left to right: USIP Board Chairman J. Robinson West, Board Vice Chair Maria Otero, USIP President Richard Solomon, and architect Moshe Safdie stand in front of the sign identifying the location of the new headquarters building.

Earlier this year, a modest change in the scenery in the area around the Lincoln Memorial and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. foreshadowed a very important development in the history of the United States Institute of Peace.

After more than a decade of planning, the Institute officially took possession of the land to be used for its permanent headquarters building and quietly began site preparation for the project. In October, a sign identifying the site as the Institute’s future home was placed on the plot. Formal groundbreaking for the headquarters project is anticipated early in 2008.

The building site—approximately two acres at the corner of 23rd Street and Constition Avenue NW—is owned by the U.S. government. The Navy had administrative jurisdiction over the land, including custody and control, until June 2007 and had been using it as a parking lot.

In a recent interview, the Institute’s Senior Counselor and Vice President for the Headquarters Project Charles E. Nelson discussed the current phase of ground preparation as the Institute moves ahead with plans to construct its new headquarters.

The primary project in this pre-construction phase has been modifying a pre-existing seven-foot diameter sewer line, built in the 1890s, that cuts diagonally across the tract. This sewer is under the jurisdiction of the Washington D.C. Sewer and Water Authority.

USIP had to decide whether to redirect this older structure around the site or to strengthen it. Ultimately, the Institute decided the most cost-effective approach was to have the existing sewer relined with a protective sheath to give it stability.

Another element of the ground preparation stage has been rerouting a General Services Administration steam pipe, currently placed alongside the northern boundary of the site. Steam will be redirected through the new line once construction begins, according to Nelson.

"These may seem to be mundane elements of a construction project," said Nelson. "But they represent major steps in the process of creating a permanent home for peacebuilding in Washington, D.C."

With the site preparation work now complete, USIP staff will continue finalizing pre-construction details of the project in collaboration with award-winning architect Moshe Safdie and his firm Moshe Safdie and Associates, which designed the Institute’s headquarters building.

The Institute is also working with the exhibit design firm Christopher Chadbourne and Associates to create the Institute’s Public Education Center—a 20,000 square foot exhibit and educational facility that will explain the challenges and techniques of international peacebuilding to the United States and the world. The Public Education Center will be open to the public year round at no cost and is expected to attract as many as half a million visitors per year.

The Institute expects the new headquarters building to open in the fall of 2010, about two and a half years after construction begins.