Photo By Christine Reinhardt | The entrance to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s new St. Louis campus...... read more read more
Group projects are almost never easy. Getting all parties to agree on everything, all the time can be a challenging feat, if not downright impossible. Now imagine trying to complete a group project on a mega scale, while still delivering it on time, within budget and safely. Mega projects within the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are no small task, and certainly not for the faint of heart.
As their name suggests, these are projects of an incredibly large scale – in budget, complexity or a combination of the two. Despite their challenging nature, the Kansas City District has become a leader in USACE with mega project success. In September 2025, the district celebrated the completion of one of its first military construction mega projects, setting the standard for future mega projects and leaving a lasting impact across the nation. Known as NGA West, or sometimes N2W, the Kansas City District completed construction after six years on a brand new, state of the art facility for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s west campus located in St. Louis.
“We call it NGA West because [the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency] has the NGA East Campus in Springfield, Virginia, which is responsible for all East Coast operations,” said Stacy Roettger, N2W program management office chief with the Kansas City District. “The campus here [in St. Louis] is responsible for all West Coast operations.”
According to its website, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency “delivers world-class geospatial intelligence” with “imagery, imagery intelligence and geospatial information to describe and depict features, activities and locations on Earth.” In layman’s terms, the agency makes maps – maps the nation’s military, intelligence professionals, first responders and anyone who “navigates with a cellphone” rely on.
The NGA West campus will replace the current facility also located in St. Louis. The building infrastructure is over 100 years old and home to more than 3,000 employees. It is outdated and unable to support the growing needs of the agency.
True to its name, the new NGA West campus was a mega project. Sitting on 97 acres, the new campus features an approximately 712,800 square foot Main Operation Building, a 38,000 square foot Central Utility Plant, two parking garages, a visitor control center, a remote inspection facility and two access control points. Costing $1.7 billion dollars and taking more than 10 years to complete from the initial design to final construction, the new campus is a vital component to the nation’s national security portfolio.
According to Roettger, the complexity of the building’s required security features set it apart from military construction projects the Kansas City District typically builds.
“Some of the bigger complications with this [project] were the security features,” she said. With more than a dozen different security systems that had to be integrated into the design and construction of the facility, the project was immensely complex. But, according to Roettger, these challenges also provided opportunity for innovation.
“The entire facility they currently occupy is a secure facility. What’s different [at the new facility] is there are spaces that are unsecure, within the secure facility. That’s a new concept,” said Roettger. “We had to create ways to transition back and forth from secure to unsecure within the same module, and ways to transition between the secure and unsecure parts of the building throughout the facility. There was some creativity with how to make that happen correctly.”
Despite the complex security features the project required, some of the most challenging aspects of the project weren’t centered around the building at all. With multiple project partners – the contractor, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the U.S. Air Force and USACE – learning how to effectively work together on such a massive project took time.
“Over such a long period of time with such a huge dollar amount and such a complex project, there’s the partnering piece,” said Roettger. “One of the biggest challenges is figuring out how to work together and come up with solutions to the various issues within a reasonable amount of time in order to keep the project moving.”
The Kansas City District team knew the importance of delivering the mega project for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, for the military and for the nation. Having been part of the project team since 2017, Roettger credits everyone involved with helping build the relationships needed to complete the huge undertaking, all in the name of national security.
“It’s a balance and over the years, it’s a relationship. So that adds to the challenge. How do we work things out together?” said Roettger. “But the importance of the technology that they bring by mapping for [the military], for everyone, allows people to go where they need to go and helps protect us.”
Lessons learned from the NGA West mega project have allowed the Kansas City District to help write the playbook on mega project partnering within USACE. Now, as the final touches on the new campus are completed and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency employees are scheduled to move in starting in early 2026, Roettger and her team prepare for what comes next – another military construction mega project in the heart of St. Louis.
“One of the biggest successes of the project is the growth of our team and all that we have learned along the way,” said Roettger. “We have a lot of lessons learned that we’re going to take from this project to the [next one] just a mile and a half down the road.”
| Date Taken: | 01.29.2026 |
| Date Posted: | 01.29.2026 15:12 |
| Story ID: | 557090 |
| Location: | MISSOURI, US |
| Web Views: | 12 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Charting the course: Completed mega project maps out lessons in partnership, by Christine Reinhardt, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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