White House Big Dig ending, but mystery remains
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WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House Big Dig is finally wrapping up, but the Big Reveal is proving to be a pretty big letdown.
After nearly two years and $86 million worth of noisy and disruptive construction, the West Wing has emerged from its visual seclusion remarkably unchanged. And deep underground, whatever has been built there remains shrouded in mystery.
Plus, if you ask what the next phase is in this massive, four-year project, the official answer is "TBD" - to be determined.
The construction project - officially a long overdue upgrade of White House utilities - began in September 2010 with the excavation of a huge, multistory pit in front of the West Wing, wrapping around to include West Executive Avenue, the street that separates the White House from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. A tall, green construction fence sprang up that blocked America's most famous office complex from public view.
But now the fence has come down, revealing the familiar whitewashed sandstone facade and the lone Marine guard who stands watch at the entrance to the West Wing lobby.
Bulldozers have covered up the hole. Contractors have repaved the asphalt driveway. National Park Service crews are mostly finished re-grading, re-sodding and replanting. Their goal has been to return the area to its original appearance.
So what, exactly, did all the digging, hammering, welding and concrete-pouring accomplish?
The General Services Administration, which oversaw the work, said it was to replace aging water and steam lines, sewers, storm sewers and electrical wiring conduits. Heating, air conditioning and fire control equipment also are being updated, officials said.
However, what reporters and photographers saw during the construction appeared to go well beyond that: a sprawling, multistory structure whose underground assembly required truckload after truckload of heavy-duty concrete and steel beams.
The GSA maintains this structure is merely "facilitating" the utility work. But neither the agency nor the administration will elaborate on its function. Last year, when the project began, GSA officials denied the construction was for additional office space or another bomb shelter. The existing White House bunker, known as the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, is under the East Wing and dates to the Roosevelt administration.
The GSA went to great lengths to keep the work secret, not only putting up the fence around the excavation site but ordering subcontractors not to talk to anyone and to tape over company info on trucks pulling into the White House gates.
Meantime, for most of those who work in the West Wing, the project has been a huge headache. Sometimes literally.
It's meant shouting to be heard over jackhammers and backhoes, and long walks on arching ramps to circumvent the extensive work zone. The GSA even built a temporary concrete-and-steel platform to elevate TV reporters and their cameras so the White House North Portico could still be seen over the fence. The platform, like the fence, is now gone. And no one's happier than West Wing denizens whose windows were blocked off.
"Now that the sights and sounds of construction workers and their equipment are gone, my outlook on the North Lawn of the White House has, literally, brightened," said deputy press secretary Josh Earnest.
But the respite may be short-lived.
Future phases of the project, whose total price tag tops $376 million, are expected to involve more excavation elsewhere on the North Lawn - the well-groomed park that tourists see from the fence on Pennsylvania Avenue - and possibly inside the East and West wings. GSA officials say wrap-up work is actually continuing on the underground utilities, albeit out of sight.
And they resolutely refuse to identify the next major work area, or to say when that construction will begin.
"The scope of any additional work in the West and East wings has not been determined, so the timing, obviously, hasn't been finalized," said agency spokeswoman Mafara Hobson.
After nearly two years and $86 million worth of noisy and disruptive construction, the West Wing has emerged from its visual seclusion remarkably unchanged. And deep underground, whatever has been built there remains shrouded in mystery.
Plus, if you ask what the next phase is in this massive, four-year project, the official answer is "TBD" - to be determined.
The construction project - officially a long overdue upgrade of White House utilities - began in September 2010 with the excavation of a huge, multistory pit in front of the West Wing, wrapping around to include West Executive Avenue, the street that separates the White House from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. A tall, green construction fence sprang up that blocked America's most famous office complex from public view.
But now the fence has come down, revealing the familiar whitewashed sandstone facade and the lone Marine guard who stands watch at the entrance to the West Wing lobby.
Bulldozers have covered up the hole. Contractors have repaved the asphalt driveway. National Park Service crews are mostly finished re-grading, re-sodding and replanting. Their goal has been to return the area to its original appearance.
So what, exactly, did all the digging, hammering, welding and concrete-pouring accomplish?
The General Services Administration, which oversaw the work, said it was to replace aging water and steam lines, sewers, storm sewers and electrical wiring conduits. Heating, air conditioning and fire control equipment also are being updated, officials said.
However, what reporters and photographers saw during the construction appeared to go well beyond that: a sprawling, multistory structure whose underground assembly required truckload after truckload of heavy-duty concrete and steel beams.
The GSA maintains this structure is merely "facilitating" the utility work. But neither the agency nor the administration will elaborate on its function. Last year, when the project began, GSA officials denied the construction was for additional office space or another bomb shelter. The existing White House bunker, known as the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, is under the East Wing and dates to the Roosevelt administration.
The GSA went to great lengths to keep the work secret, not only putting up the fence around the excavation site but ordering subcontractors not to talk to anyone and to tape over company info on trucks pulling into the White House gates.
Meantime, for most of those who work in the West Wing, the project has been a huge headache. Sometimes literally.
It's meant shouting to be heard over jackhammers and backhoes, and long walks on arching ramps to circumvent the extensive work zone. The GSA even built a temporary concrete-and-steel platform to elevate TV reporters and their cameras so the White House North Portico could still be seen over the fence. The platform, like the fence, is now gone. And no one's happier than West Wing denizens whose windows were blocked off.
"Now that the sights and sounds of construction workers and their equipment are gone, my outlook on the North Lawn of the White House has, literally, brightened," said deputy press secretary Josh Earnest.
But the respite may be short-lived.
Future phases of the project, whose total price tag tops $376 million, are expected to involve more excavation elsewhere on the North Lawn - the well-groomed park that tourists see from the fence on Pennsylvania Avenue - and possibly inside the East and West wings. GSA officials say wrap-up work is actually continuing on the underground utilities, albeit out of sight.
And they resolutely refuse to identify the next major work area, or to say when that construction will begin.
"The scope of any additional work in the West and East wings has not been determined, so the timing, obviously, hasn't been finalized," said agency spokeswoman Mafara Hobson.
 It is a Mosque so Obama can do his 5 daily prayers.
 @Maynard G Krebbs At the very least it is helping sell a lot more cranial-grade tin foil as your post proves.
 @Maynard G Krebbs So then I take it you'd have a problem if he were a dedicated Muslim?  Apply your own measure to yourself once. You think you'd be worthy of that post? You think that if you really believe and pray to someone you can't do that job? Say something real or not.
All systems access denial to that property is a pain in the butt just to protect those who do so much harm no matter who happens to live there.
Massive septic tank for all the B.S. that comes out of the White house.
 @al_wa And Lincoln put it there to remind everyone of all that bs that came before and after him, too. He watches it now, armed with nukes and thinkin hard on Japanese photographers and others nearby that pool so the world gets it too. Lincoln was a decent gent then as now, so get your national history right. If someone tried to take you on a National Treasure hunt you'd be screwed.
 @al_wa No, that's the pool on the Mall in front of Lincoln, al_. This is slushfund vault space or a place to torture Judges and Priests or something.
It's happening at the Denver Airport- a massive underground bunker and at the NORAD ( no longer NORAD) but another vast underground facility- all for the elite. Â China has been building some major cities with big skycrapers with nobody living there execpt some security guards. Â What's this about? Â Just google empty cities built by China and Russia.
 @None The Chinese haven't decided to fully engage us yet. Us being the world. There are idiot money complaints there but they could easily fire those cities tomorrow. Their system allows for direct physical manipulation of the masses and wealth far more than here. I'd say they all have bunkers all over the world now too. The rich are driven by fear.
Ooo-Ooo, I know, I know! America's creating it's own Valley of the Kings! Forget all that Arlington National Cemetery stuff, what we need is some good old fashioned tomb building so we will have tourist attractions in 5,000 years! Got to think to the future!
Well it's pretty obvious that it goes beyond upgrading the utilities. Otherwise, why go to the trouble of putting up fences and covering the company names on trucks? That alone gives it away as a bunker of some sort.
Someone is concerned about the end of the world on December 21?
When were the monies for this project approved and allocated? It has been in the works for 2 years, but there hasn't been a budget approved in how long? When did the money make its way into the pipeline and by whom? What a ridiculously high cost for "unnamed" improvements. Every American should be contacting their elected officials and saying, it's my money, I would like to know how it's spent!
May be a putt putt Golf course?
So called, shovel ready job.
An underground basketball arena.
It's Obama's new water boarding facility...or maybe Michelle's new home theater and organic garden complex
Its the new area 51.... da da da!!!!!
What's the big deal? So the government decided to build some secret space in the White House. Like we didn't already know there are things the government does/has that we have no idea about.
@keeper So true. But that doesn't stop us from being curious though. And I am curious about this and Area 51. By the same token I don't expect the government to tell me what's up any time soon.
Betcha it is some kind of massive underground shelter for terrorism attacks, nuclear attacks, the end of the world... Just replacing the old underground utilities should NOT cost upwards of $376 million. That seems absolutely OUTRAGEOUS to me.
Lets see the whitehouse fallout shelter incase of alien invasion I guess needed an upgrade so it could get satelite TV and free HBO...
Need to know basis. I don't need to know. The public tour was enough for me.
@Klondiko You don't need to know how your tax dollars are being spent?
some things are secret due to national security. If they wanted us to know they would tell us.
 @katiemcc  @Klondiko I don't need to know--in the same way the terrorists don't need to know--there's probably a new bomb shelter and operations center under the White House. Thank you American reporting system. No need for spies when you have the Associated Press.
Â
@chandler @Klondiko Good point. Too bad that's one way the government can get away with overspending by the billions, they just don't reveal what they're spending it on in the name of national security. But I will agree that the media leaves no secrets (except frequently the basic info of a story "who", "what", "why", etc.)