Marine Corps museum expansion underway

Marine Corps museum to close January through March 2016 

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Work is underway at the National Museum of the Marine Corps to complete the circle.

A new 128,000 square-foot expansion of the iconic museum is slated to be finished by 2017. A new exhibit gallery, art gallery, and large format theater should be open to the public a year later.

“We get asked all the time, “where is the story of my unit” and “where is the equipment I used,” said Marine Corps Museum Exbibit Chief Chuck Girbovan.

The museum opened in 2006 and showcased the U.S. Marine Corps during the years 1775 to 1975, up to the Vietnam War. The new exhibit hall will immerse visitors in time periods to include the Persian Gulf War of 1990, and the conflicts in Iraq and Afganistan.

An Iraqi village will be constructed inside a new 24,000 square-foot exhibit hall. Visitors will see how the nature of combat changed between fighting in Vietnam to fighting in Iraq, where troops took on more of a peacekeeping role and worked alongside other nations who had troops on the ground, said Girbovan.

Also included in the new exampsion will be a “Hall of Valor” where Medal of Honor Recipients will be recognized. There will also be an art gallery featuring watercolors and pastel paintings created by Marines serving on the front lines depicting war.

A new large format 350-seat theater will also be built. It will show a film that showcases what it’s like to be a Marine on land and at sea.

The $69 million addition will complete the original planned circular layout of the museum. Earth movers just outside the building are clearing the way for the expansion that will require cutting into a portion of a thick concrete wall at the end of the final exhit hall.

The museum will close January through March 2016 — a departure from it’s regular operating hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day except Christmas — so curators can bring in new artifacts like a 55-ton M60 tank, and an FA18 fighter jet that must have its wing clipped just to fit inside the building.

The museum opened nearly 10 years ago and with a mission to first feature the World War II and Korea exhibits. The idea was to showcase Marines who fought in these conflicts to honor those Marines who are still alive today,

“As spectacular as this museum is today, the building is unfinished, and we are here completing the mission,” said Marine Corps Heritage Foundation President Lt. Gen. Robert R. Blackman.

The foundation will fund and coordinate construction of the new expansion just as it did the original $75 million first phase of the Marine Museum. It will then hand over the operation and care of the expansion to museum staff.

Afterward, the foundation will explore new ways to bring the story of the Marine Corps on the road, possibly in the form of a traveling exhibit to military bases and state fairs.

“We’re going to take the influence this museum has beyond Exit 150 on Highway 95,” said Blackman.

About 500,000 people visited the National Museum of the Marine Corps in 2014. About 53,000 of them were school children, and about half of those were from outside Virginia, said Blackman.

Museum officials expect Marines will continue to come from all over the U.S, to see the museum. They also hope area residents will return to the museum in 2018 to see the addition and the many new exhibits and artifacts that will be on display.

A ribbon cutting for the new expansion was held in March. Hundreds attended a special ceremony inside Leatherneck Hall. An backhoe was used to break ground on the new expansion.