CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW)- For the first time in its 25-year history, the National Ground Intelligence Center’s Nicholson Building, on the grounds of the U.S. Army’s Rivanna Station Base in Albemarle County, has expanded its footprint. The three-level, 80,000 square foot addition has been in the works for 10 years, according to NGIC. The addition will also improve the intelligence gathering and analyzing capabilities of the facility, providing intelligence to the army, joint forces, Department of War, and national-level policymakers.
Housed within the expansion are additional science and technology laboratories, as well as analytical workspaces for intelligence personnel as they work to understand foreign and new military technology in play across the world.
Col. Jay McGee, base commander of NGIC, stated that the extra space was crucial to consolidate a work force that was previously spread around several buildings across the base and across facilities.
The project “consolidates our workforce, and enhances its technological capacity, which grows the speed and clarity of the analysis,” McGee enumerated.
The original Nicholson building was opened 10 days following the Sept. 11 attacks, on Sept. 21, 2001. It was named in honor of Col. Arthur Nicholson Jr., a military liaison killed in the line of duty in Germany in 1985. Nicholson’s daughter, Jennifer Ramsberg, was in attendance Friday as NGIC dedicated the new facility with a ceremony bookended by a full color guard.
The Cville Singers were also in attendance to sing the national anthem and a variety of dignitaries were on hand, including Sen. Mark Warner and Rep. John McGuire.
Members of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, and other county Government personnel were in attendance, as were staff from the Governor’s office, and the offices of other members of the Intelligence committee.
Warner, a member of the Intelligence Committee, and McGuire, a member of the Armed Services Committee, both discussed the importance of NGIC’s work to the intelligence community.
“I didn’t think, back in 2001, that this facility would be so important,” Warner said, recalling his first visit to NGIC.
Warner also suggested the expansion could lead to more federal agencies having a presence in the area, including the CIA.
The Senator criticized the federal government workforce cuts under the Department of Government Efficiency that occurred in 2025.
“There is no place across the federal workforce that hasn’t been hurt by this effort,” Warner said. “Within the intel and secure communities, cutting programs that they had no understanding what (they were) about, it’s a mistake.”
Warner worried that the cuts could have longterm impacts on the federal government’s ability to make hires.
“We need to respect the personnel in the intelligence community so that they can stay in the fight,” Warner said.
McGuire, who served as Navy SEAL before joining Congress, also praised the expansion.
“This is an investment in our future,” McGuire said. “And I can’t think of a better place to do it than in Charlottesville.”
McGuire said his time as a SEAL taught him how valuable the information the intelligence community provides really is.
“It is important to know what awaits you in the dark,” McGuire said. “And that knowledge only comes from the intelligence community.”
Both men spoke on the bipartisan effort that is national security, and appropriately, both men shared the scissors alongside McGee to cut the ribbon on the Nicholson building’s expansion, three days before the 25th anniversary of the National Ground Intelligence Center moving to the Ruckersville base.
