The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command will break ground Tuesday on a new $100 million facility at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.

Falling directly under U.S. Pacific Command, JPAC and its more than 400 military and civilian specialists investigate and recover Americans reported as missing during the nation’s wars.

The Naval Facilities Engineering Command Pacific awarded a $62.7 million firm, fixed-price contract in June to Nan Inc. of Hono-lulu to build the command facility.

Work will include construction of a three-story building, which will provide an identification laboratory, administrative office spaces, training spaces and a warehouse.

The building will consolidate JPAC operations and provide almost 140,000 square feet of space. The new space will include 53,000 square feet of dedicated laboratory area, more than double the current space at the lab’s Hickam and Pearl Harbor sites combined.

The project also includes interior/exterior structure work and installation such as roofing, plumbing, air conditioning and ventilation, electrical work, landscaping and miscellaneous site improvements.

"This new facility will be a tremendous asset for us as we execute our very important mission of investigating, recovering, identifying, and ultimately returning missing Americans from our nation’s past conflicts to their families," Maj. Gen. Stephen Tom, JPAC’s commander, said in June.

The 2010 National Defense Authorization Act required JPAC to significantly increase its missions to account for missing persons so that, beginning with fiscal year 2015, JPAC would identify at least 200 missing persons annually.

In fiscal 2010, JPAC identified 17 individuals from the Vietnam War, 18 from the Korean War and 36 from World War II.

About 74,000 U.S. service members remain unaccounted for from World War II, 8,000 are missing from the Korean War and 1,669 are unaccounted for from the Vietnam War.