WATERLOO -- The Grout Museum has more than made up for any lost time on its $11.5 million Iowa veterans museum addition.

While the official groundbreaking was delayed by winter weather in late February and early March, construction work on the addition is now on schedule or beyond, Grout executive director Billie Bailey said.

"We're actually right now, knock on wood, a little ahead," Bailey said. The addition, named for Waterloo's five Sullivan brothers killed during World War II, is scheduled to open in the fall of 2008. Some crews working weekends "are helping us stay on or slightly ahead of schedule," she said.

The addition is slowly rising out of what was a grassy sloping hillside on the north side of the museum. A rounded exterior wall of the veterans addition, at the southeast corner of Washington Street and West Park Avenue, is taking shape, Bailey said. Zinc paneling covering that rounded exterior wall is expected to be installed yet this summer.

The construction project has not significantly impacted normal museum programming, though it has required some staff office relocations, Bailey said.

The addition will be a series of interactive historic exhibits from various wars in which Iowans have served, from the front lines to the home front, and from the Civil War to Iraq and Afghanistan. InVision Architecture of Waterloo is the project architect. Cardinal Construction of Waterloo is the general contractor.

It also will serve as a research archive for Iowa veterans. More than 700 stories from veterans and civilians on the home front have been recorded. An important part of the museum will be a library and archives, a gift of the McKinstry family of Waterloo, which will serve as a valuable research resource.

Current plans are to reconstruct Civil War-era boxcars used to transport troops; a World War I-era combat trench; a World War II vintage P-51 Mustang fighter plane, replica World War II-era M-4 Sherman tank and a re-created Navy ship's ward room for the Pacific theater of the war; the front of a Korean War-era jet fighter; a portion of a Vietnam-era Huey helicopter; and a 1991 Persian Gulf War-era tent.

As building construction is progressing, a St. Paul, Minn., company, Split Rock Studios, is working with a museum committee to design exhibits in the museum, Bob Neymeyer of the Grout said. An entire "concept package" for the exhibits is anticipated to be submitted to the Grout board for approval in late September. It's anticipated the exhibits will be installed in the late spring or early summer of 2008.

"The way I envision it, the building would be essentially complete and we'd be able to move in in May or June," Bailey said. At that point, construction crews would begin a renovation of the existing museum space.

"We haven't worked out the details, but I anticipate there's going to be some periods where the museum is closed, briefly," for that renovation work, Bailey said.

As part of that work, the existing museum library will be converted into three or four classrooms so a Grout "museum school" program involving local schools can be held on site at the museum. Currently the Grout utilizes some nearby former medical offices for that purpose, when grade school students spend a week of school in a study program at the Grout Museum District. The library will be moved to the veterans addition, which will house an Iowa veterans history research archive.

Also as part of the existing-museum renovation, carpeting will be replaced, major exhibit halls will get new lighting and cement block walls will be dry-walled. Also some heating, ventilation and air conditioning improvements will be done, replacing some equipment that has been at the museum since its construction 50 years ago. All permanent museum exhibits will remain in place, Bailey said.

"Hopefully, we'll be on target for a fall '08 opening" for the entire expanded facility, Bailey said.

Grout board chairman Roger Olesen and Waterloo attorney Ed Gallagher Jr., both World War II-era veterans of the U.S. Navy, co-chaired a fund drive that has raised $11.5 million for the project, six years in the making.

More information on the museum project may be obtained by contacting the Grout at (319) 234-6357 or www.groutmuseumdistrict.org.

Contact Pat Kinney at (319) 291-1484 or Pat.Kinney@wcfcourier.com.