December 2004/January 2005
Vol. X, No. 4

Congress Appropriates $100 Million to Building Institute Headquarters

Institute's new home planned on National Mall

Image of planned Institute Headquarters. (Institute Photo)

The U.S. Institute of Peace received a special holiday present this year when Congress appropriated $100 million in the omnibus spending bill, signed by President Bush in early December, for construction of a permanent headquarters facility for the Institute. The Institute’s new home is envisioned as a national center for research, education, training, and policy development on issues of international conflict prevention and management.

The funding comes on the twentieth anniversary of the Institute’s establishment, which the U.S. Senate has recognized with a resolution citing it as a “valued resource of innovative ideas and practical policy analysis on peacemaking in zones of conflict around the world.”

The building will be located on a two-and-a-half acre site at Constitution and 23rd Street, NW., adjacent to the National Mall and overlooking the Lincoln Memorial. The building was designed by the architect Moshe Safdie. When completed, the facility will become one of Washington’s “gateway structures,” and the “endpoint for a line of significant works of architecture on the north side of Constitution Avenue,” according to Washington Post architecture critic Benjamin Forgey.

The headquarters project is designed as a public-private partnership. The Institute will be seeking additional funding from the private sector to complete the project.

More about plans for the new building are available online.