Unknown Navy Project

Bing Maps

Overview

This site is in Washington, D.C. on the National Mall just south of the railroad bridge that runs beside Route 1 and I-395, approximately 2 miles northeast of the Pentagon. The site is comprised of 2 large temporary buildings, one of which has large exhaust fans on the roof. As of 2006, there were signs at the site for Kiewet, a prominent tunneling firm.¹ According to a Washington Post article from November 26, 2004, the Navy controls the site and describes it as a “utility assessment and upgrade”. The article says that “theories abound about the four-acre complex, which is dead center in a ring that includes the White House, the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, Reagan National Airport and the National War College. Is it a sophisticated sensor station, guarding the 14th Street bridge and other Potomac River crossings? Is it an excavation point for underwater barriers to protect the Washington Channel and Potomac River from submarines? Is it a staging area for Navy Seabees securing underwater cables between the White House and the Pentagon, across the river?”²

Cryptome eyeballed the site in 2006 and identifies the site as:³

2N37 Plaza A,
Washington, D. C. 20505

If this is correct, it would make the site the location of the Open Source Information System and Community Open Source Program Office, an entity no longer thought to be in existence. The osis.gov registrant information that provides this address is dated August 6th, 2003. Given that construction on the site seems to have begun in 2004 according to Cryptome’s historical photos, it seems the site is related to the implementation of new IT network infrastructure leading up to the decoupling of the Open Source Information System in 2006. This would likely be part of the push to enhance network security and CNO following the Information Operations Roadmap of 2003.