St. Louis residents are getting their first look at what the new headquarters of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in north St. Louis will look like.

The Army Corps of Engineers, which is overseeing construction at the 97-acre site, released the drawings for the spy agency’s new campus on Tuesday. The office building, garages, visitors center and security checkpoints are being designed and built by a combined venture of McCarthy Building Companies, which is based in the St. Louis suburb of Rock Hill, and HITT Contracting, which is based in the Washington, D.C. area.

“We will not get the contractor’s schedule for another six weeks, and we don’t have firm dates right now, but we anticipate the groundbreaking will be in the late summer or fall and hope that construction will start as early as late this year,” said Amy Snively, a spokeswoman with the Army Corps of Engineers, which is overseeing the NGA West project.

The campus construction contract is worth $700 million, Snively said.

“McCarthy-Hitt’s contract includes the design and construction of majority of the facilities, but it does not include all the facilities, nor the IT infrastructure necessary for the NGA missions,” she said.

The construction of the campus should be done by 2023, Snively said, and the entire $1.75 billion project should be completed by 2025. It allows the spy agency to upgrade its facilities and allows for future expansion.

Credit Provided | McCarthy-Hitt Drawings by a joint venture between McCarthy Building Companies and HITT Contracting show the entrance to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency's new western headquarters in north St. Louis.

Follow Rachel on Twitter: @rlippmann

Send questions and comments about this story to feedback@stlpublicradio.org