A Status Report to Congress, the Renovation of the Pentagon, March 1, 2007

I. PROGRAM OVERVIEW

Prior to the renovation of Wedge 1, the Pentagon, designated a National Historic Landmark in 1992, had never undergone a major renovation. After more than 60 years of operation and use, renovation is essential in order to meet current health, fire and life-safety codes, and to provide reliable electrical, air conditioning and ventilating services.

The passage of time and the cumulative effect of decades of deferred maintenance had left this historic structure in an advanced state of deterioration. The extent of the decay, against a background of steadily increasing operations and maintenance costs, precludes anything less than a total, slab-to-slab renovation.

The Pentagon Renovation & Construction Program Office's (PENREN's) activities began in 1993 with the Pentagon Heating and Refrigeration Plant. The original completion date for the renovation of Wedges 2-5 was 2014. However, the events of September 11, 2001 made apparent a more immediate need to complete the building's life-safety and security enhancements. Congress provided for the transfer of $300 million in Fiscal Year 2002 to the Pentagon Reservation Maintenance Revolving Fund (Sec. 305(b), P.L. 107-117, Jan 10, 2002) to finance the accelerated Pentagon renovation and to make command centers more secure. As a result, PENREN will complete renovations 36 to 48 months ahead of the original schedule.

PENREN faces complications in completely overhauling the Pentagon, including the presence of asbestos and other hazardous materials, as well as the need to work around more than 20,000 people who cannot afford interruptions in their daily operations. The Pentagon's technology infrastructure is no less in need of modernization, a task that rivals the construction effort in size and complexity.

The Pentagon was designed prior to the advent of computers. The integration of Information Technology within the Pentagon had necessarily been ad hoc. Advances in technology demanded frequent replacements of IT systems. Subsequently, new systems were frequently installed immediately adjacent to, or over the top of existing systems, which were frequently abandoned in place. This process, repeated many times, created an incomprehensible tangled mix of multiple wiring systems, many of them abandoned and all of them unmarked.

The confusion is not limited to cabling. Computer networks were initially installed by individual tenant agencies. This patchwork infrastructure has proven difficult and expensive to maintain. The focus of the Pentagon Information Technology modernization program is to replace multiple existing systems with a single, centrally designed and managed, secure network for all Pentagon tenants. This effort is being conducted concurrently with the brick-and-mortar renovation under a separate contract.

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