Inside the construction fencing where crane tracks zig zag down Chestnut Avenue, past the Bedford stone sculptures extolling the virtues of military service, downtown St. Louis’ aged and musty Soldiers Memorial is getting ready to shine.

An extensive, $30 million renovation is underway — one that promises to transform the 1938 building into a fitting tribute to the men and women who served the nation during its wars.

“It’s very much been a labor of love,” said Karen Goering, the Missouri History Museum’s managing director of operations, during a tour on Wednesday to show off some of the work that’s been completed.

Missouri History Museum leaders, who last year took over responsibility for the memorial from the city, say Soldiers Memorial will open Nov. 3, emphasizing that date as if it were etched into the same granite columns encircling the facility.

“We’re firm on that,” said Leigh Walters, museum spokeswoman. “We’ll be open before next Veterans Day.”

Stories of St. Louisans in wartime from the American Revolution to today’s foreign conflicts will be told on the main floor, said Jody Sowell, director of exhibitions and research. The lower level will host temporary exhibits, but also space for the museum to continue more of its work documenting soldiers’ stories.

“We’ll actually have a recording studio for veterans’ oral histories,” Sowell said.

The new Soldiers Memorial exhibits will be multi-faceted, similar to the format used at the Missouri History Museum in Forest Park. Artifacts and interpretive text will be accompanied by visual and audio elements, while the museum’s historic glass display cases in the center of the east and west wings will be used in ways familiar to past visitors.

“We’re really focused on the individual experience, making it about how St. Louisans were affected or impacted in these conflicts,” Sowell said.

Artifacts will range from a large Emerson airplane turret to a tail hook for plane landings on aircraft carriers. One wing will feature the bell from the cruiser St. Louis, commissioned in 1906. (The Navy has featured six vessels named after St. Louis, Goering said, with a seventh, a littoral combat ship, currently under construction in Wisconsin.)

The nearly 40-foot-high walls on the main floor that were opened for installing air systems have been resealed, along with the original marble along the base removed for asbestos abatement. The original terrazzo flooring in those rooms will be polished before the reopening.

New elements, such as an elevator in the east wing, were designed with marble adorning the entry to look as if they had always been part of the Art Deco building. The building’s varied light fixtures are being rewired and restored with LED lighting, while additional lighting was added to the black granite cenotaph in the open entrance highlighting the names of the 1,075 St. Louisans who died in World War I.

Above the cenotaph, the red and gold tile mosaic featuring a star in the middle honoring the mothers of St. Louis’ dead soldiers has also been restored. Upstairs, an assembly hall and educational programming spaces also have been restored.

The use of restored and recycled materials is also part of the museum’s goal of being certified as an energy and resource-efficient building. The Leadership in Energy Environmental Design certification is awarded by the U.S. Green Building Council.

The indoor space is expected to be finished by the spring, but Walters said the building needed to “cure,” or essentially be aired out for any harmful gases, before exhibits are moved in.

South of the building past Chestnut Street, which for one block will be reduced to one eastbound lane, is the Court of Honor. The space is getting a new reflecting pool where water rises through cracks in what looks like a jumbo version of the cenotaph in the building, surrounded by red granite tablets holding the names of St. Louis’ 2,753 fallen soldiers from World War II.

Just north of the Court of Honor is a new outdoor assembly space, which Missouri History Museum officials want used for programming related to veterans and military history.

“It’s a very quiet, contemplative space,” Walters said.

The Missouri History Museum operates with $10 million annually from the taxpayer-funded Zoological and Museum District, but none of those funds are going into the costs of operating and renovating Soldiers Memorial. Those costs have been covered by anonymous donors, museum officials said.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story has been updated to correct the name of Jody Sowell, which was misspelled in an earlier version.

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