BY: MICHAEL ACHTERLING (North Dakota Monitor)
The new North Dakota Military History Museum will be tall enough to suspend a helicopter or drone. It will incorporate thousands of personal service stories from North Dakota veterans and, according to the state’s adjutant general, represents a “Thank you for your service” from every North Dakotan to the state’s military service members.
The Capitol Grounds Planning Commission voted unanimously this week to approve conceptual designs and the basic floor plan. The step allows project designers to move forward with more detailed construction designs in preparation for an expected groundbreaking in 2025 and scheduled completion in 2027.
Brian Berg, principal architect for Zerr Berg Architects, told the commission the designers tried to keep some uniformity with other structures on the Capitol grounds in the designs for the museum’s exterior that will be attached to the North Dakota Heritage Center.
Craig Peterson, a design architect at BWBR, a design firm working with Zerr Berg, said the new museum’s main entrance will be similar to the entrance to the Heritage Center, which utilizes stone, copper and glass.
The new military gallery will be two levels, Peterson said, and large enough to hang large military vehicles or equipment from the ceiling. The gallery will be an enclosed space with little to no natural sunlight penetrating into the gallery in order to better preserve the items on display, he said.
The military gallery will total about 20,000 square feet, he said, and will equal the size of the Heritage Center’s largest gallery, the Inspiration Gallery. The facility also will include an expanded food service area and outdoor courtyard and amphitheater.
Bill Peterson, director of the State Historical Society of North Dakota, said his staff has collected about 2,000 oral history recordings from North Dakota veterans.
“The exhibits company that we are working with has been fully committed to working with us to develop these stories that highlight the experiences and the lives of real North Dakotans in this gallery space to make it very personal,” Bill Peterson said.
The military museum will showcase a history of Native American military units that will include pre- and post-contact with the United States.
“It will be a very complete story with everybody’s histories included,” he said.
Craig Peterson said the museum designs leave space for the possible additions of an agriculture gallery and structure for large object storage.
Aside from when the North Dakota Legislature is in session, there appears to be ample parking around the campus to accommodate the new museum traffic, Peterson added.
State Rep. Bernie Satrom, R-Jamestown, told the designers he had just visited the National Veterans Memorial and Museum in Columbus, Ohio, and said many of the people he talked to there were proud of their facility that was established in 2018.
“After going through that, I thought, ‘You know what? That’s great, but what we’re doing is going to be so much better,’” Satrom said. He also said he hoped to incorporate the stories of North Dakota veterans into the gallery, similar to Ellis Island in New York.
Berg said the design team is putting together a final preliminary project cost that should be ready in coming weeks.
Bill Peterson told the Legislature’s Budget Section in December the final project cost is estimated to be about $55 million to $60 million. This week, Peterson said the goal is for $30 million to be raised in private fundraising through the National Guard Foundation.
About $400,000 in pledges had been secured for the project as of late July, said Brig. Gen. Jackie Huber, deputy adjutant general.
The Historical Society plans to submit a funding request for the project to be considered in the upcoming legislative session, Bill Peterson said.
A bill in the 2023 session authorized a $20 million line of credit from the Bank of North Dakota that must be paid back. The bill directed the Historical Society to request funding in the 2025 session from Legacy Fund earnings.
During the meeting, Maj. Gen. Alan Dohrmann, adjutant general for the North Dakota National Guard, praised the collaborative effort on the museum project.
“When I look at this project, it’s the state of North Dakota saying, ‘Thank you for your service,’” Dohrmann said. “It’s a tangible sign that we appreciate that less than 1% that raises a right hand to defend the Constitution, up to and including the cost of their own life.”
Commissioner Wendy Van Duyne abstained during the vote on the museum designs due to a conflict of interest involving her employer being involved with the design process.
For more information on the North Dakota Military History Museum, visit the North Dakota Heritage Center and State Museum website.
