Army Lt. Gen. Patrick J. O'Reilly, Missile Defense Agency director, hosted a ground breaking ceremony today for the Von Braun IV facility at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala. The 225,000 square foot facility will house more than 850 employees.

At the ceremony, O'Reilly noted to the audience of several hundred attendees that when VBIV is complete 5,700 employees will be working together in an integrated fashion on one campus, making it "the epicenter of missile defense expertise in the world."

Other participants in today's ceremony included Sen. Richard Shelby; Sen. Jeff Sessions; Rep. Mo Brooks; Redstone Garrison Commander John Hamilton; Wade Wooley of the Mobile District, U. S. Army Corps of Engineers; and John Gromos, Turner Universal Construction.

Construction of the VBIV facility is scheduled to begin by Oct. 1 and is expected to be complete by Aug. 2014. More than 800 construction workers are projected to work on the building. The construction contractor is Turner Universal Construction Company of Huntsville, Ala. HNTB of Kansas City, Mo. is the building designer. The construction cost of VBIV is approximately $58 million.

The VBIV facility will be a part of the Von Braun Complex. The first occupancy of MDA personnel is projected to occur by the latter part of 2014.