Pentagon's Construction Team Beats The Odds On One-Year Rebuild
Less than one year after the terrorist attack, construction teams defied expectations and met their psychological and physical goal: to have workers reoccupy the damaged section of the Dept of Defense headquarters by the one-year anniversary. In less than 11 months, workers demolished and rebuilt the most severely damaged section, about 400,000 sq ft that they dubbed the Phoenix Project, for the mythological bird that rose from the ashes. At the same time, adjacent areas were cleaned of water and smoke damage. The first Phoenix tenants, about 18 people in the Marine Corps general counsel's office, moved back in Aug. 15. By Sept. 9, approximately 600 military and civilian personnel will be sitting at their desks in the new offices.
Rebuilding the Pentagon took teamwork, creativity and some ingenuity. The workers also shared a tremendous amount of patriotism, personal pride and emotion-not to mention 20-hour days, six or seven days a week. That emotional tie was evident in the first few days after the attack. Preliminary construction reports estimated it would take three to four years to rebuild the damaged section. But within days, a groundswell of workers began voicing their wish to have offices at the point of impact reoccupied by the one-year anniversary. Walker Lee Evey, the Pentagon Renovation program manager, admits he had some doubts that the goal would be anything more than ceremonial. But if the workers were convinced they could do it in a year, managers had to provide the tools for success, he says.