Upon a butte in the Little Missouri River Valley just outside of Medora, North Dakota, the construction of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library (TRPL) is underway.
“This is Teddy's town, here in North Dakota,” said Trever Leingang, Project Manager, JE Dunn. “The people are proud of the time that he spent out here, and they're proud to have the library being built in their backyard.”
That backyard happens to be the Badlands, a rugged landscape that makes the steep, uneven site difficult to access. Harsh, bitter winters and high winds also make this construction project a particularly foreboding feat.
Missouri-based JE Dunn Construction is facing four simultaneous construction challenges in developing this presidential tribute: a remote site, limited infrastructure access, extreme weather, and a complex architectural design.
“The project is deeply rooted after the legacy of our 26th President Teddy Roosevelt,” Leingang said. “A big goal is to create a transformative landmark near Medora, North Dakota.”
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The grand opening is slated for July 4, 2026, when America turns 250.
“We've got a lot of pressure to get it done, and we'll have it done,” said Steve Fore, General Superintendent, JE Dunn.
Theodore Roosevelt (TR), known for his dedication to environmental conservation, was a former Badlands cattle rancher and was drawn to the area for its ecological diversity and beauty.
Paying tribute to Roosevelt’s personal philosophies, international architectural firm Snøhetta is designing the TRPL to not only blend in with the landscape but also to become part of it.
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According to the TRPL website, it will not be a static environment, but will instead take visitors on their own journey as they traverse through immersive galleries, theaters, and experiences that encompass key themes and moments from Roosevelt’s life, aiming to push guests outdoors, where they can see and feel the landscape as Roosevelt once experienced it.
“We want people to feel that the outdoors is where transformation — physical, mental, and spiritual — happens, just as it did for Roosevelt,” said Ed O’Keefe, CEO, TRPL Foundation.
A nearly mile-long, elevated boardwalk will weave across the grasslands of the Badlands’ bluff, connecting the many project areas to one another. Along the way, visitors will encounter a series of pathways that connect to the nearby 144-mile indigenous trail system, the Maah Daah Hey Trail, translated from the Mandan language to mean “an area that will be around for a long time.”
“If visitors leave feeling calmer, braver, and more connected to [the] place — and ready to act for the common good — then we’ve honored TR’s legacy,” O’Keefe said. “That’s the emotional bar we’re setting.”
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The $400 million privately funded, 92-acre project began construction in May 2023.
The library’s main building is 110,000 square feet, consisting of two separate buildings: an eastside auditorium, mechanical, and office spaces; and a westside cafe and exhibits. A breezeway stands between the two buildings. There is also a “green roof” that covers the roof entirely from the east to the west and ties the two buildings together.
“Inside we've got exhibit walls going in,” Fore said. “We've got a lot of mechanical and electrical trades working in there. There's everything going on that you can think of, from putting in foundations and concrete, to finished dirt, and planting landscape, drywall hanging, and installing everything.”
The most technical challenge was the library’s hybrid steel and mass timber structure, extremely complex to construct due to the geometry of the roof and the compound curvature, becoming one of the defining construction milestones for JE Dunn.
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“That was a big challenge early on, but a rewarding process, and that led into multiple challenges throughout the project due to the curve and the overall structure of the building,” Leingang said.
O’Keefe has been a driving force behind the vision for the library, which aims to be the only carbon-neutral presidential library and a model of self-sufficiency. The design goal is to have the building function in sync with the unique ecology that surrounds it.
In pursuit of the Living Building Challenge (LBC), the TRPL will be net positive in water, emissions, energy, and waste. It was designed to be a “living library” within the landscape so that the library genuinely “lives off the land.”
“We chose the Living Building Challenge because our mission demands we lead, not follow,” O’Keefe said. “Theodore Roosevelt’s legacy is conservation in action. Our building has to embody that spirit for the next 100 years.”
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LBC is a holistic, regenerative framework with seven “petals” (Place, Water, Energy, Health + Happiness, Materials, Equity, and Beauty) that align directly with how O’Keefe and his team want people to experience this landscape and the TRPL.
“That means geothermal wells, a high-performance envelope, timber structure, photovoltaic generation, water harvesting, and robust reuse and composting strategies — all integrated with the Badlands ecology,” O’Keefe said. “It’s ambitious, but that’s the point.”
“Sustainability wasn't just a ‘check-the-box’ on this project, it was our responsibility to carry on that legacy of Roosevelt,” Fore said.
“Snøhetta, JLG, JE Dunn [and Confluence] have worked shoulder-to-shoulder to align every decision with the library’s purpose — leadership, citizenship, and conservation — so the campus feels coherent and values-driven from the boardwalk to the beam,” O’Keefe said.
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“We hope it sends a clear message: cultural places can model regenerative design at scale,” O’Keefe added. “Very few projects worldwide have achieved full LBC certification. We’re committed to joining them and showing that a presidential library can be a living teacher of stewardship.”
The library itself is being built into the earth. The sweeping curves of the complex roof geometry were designed to echo the curvature of the Badlands themselves.
Visitors will see a building stitched into this setting, including the living prairie roof that visually returns the grassland to the horizon line. The green roof structure was replanted in the early months of 2025 with local plants developed from local seeds.
“That roof is already taking shape on site and will be a defining feature that signals Roosevelt’s enduring conservation ethos,” O’Keefe said.
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JE Dunn is also working with Mercer Mass Timber to incorporate nearly 1,800 cubic meters of cross‑laminated timber and glulam, making it the largest mass timber undertaking in the state to date.
“Douglas fir is the species of wood, and it is Forest Stewardship Council certified,” Leingang said. “The forests that this wood was harvested from get replanted, which would obviously be Roosevelt approved.”
“Part of the sustainability goals is it's heated and cooled from geothermal wells, drilled deep into the earth out here,” Leingang added. “So I think the curved roof structure, the dome shape roof, helps with the extreme weather that western North Dakota experiences year in and year out.”
The remoteness of the Badlands terrain required careful planning. It is so “off the grid” that the team had to create the backbone utilities prior to construction.
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Roughrider Electric, the rural electric cooperative based out of Dickinson, North Dakota, had to install 12 miles of new infrastructure to power the library.
“There's one way in, one way out,” Leingang said. “That ultimately impacts logistics, environmental protection throughout the seasons, hauling material up, and things like that.”
The team locally sourced building and design materials.
“We really focused [on] getting the local trade partners involved and using local help. ... The supply chain really hasn't been an issue for us,” Fore said. “You got to plan ahead, be aware of it. We have procurement teams working and looking ahead for us.”
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“There’s a difference in the word ‘schedule’ and the word ‘plan,’” Fore added. “You can have a schedule, but scheduling does not mean you're planning.”
The prefabrication of mechanical racks, wood siding, even some of the mass timber have been an important part of the project.
“Prefabrication efforts has been something that's helped us be more efficient out here. ... I could spend all day talking about it. A lot of the trades are using fabrication efforts off site to have materials built so that they're ready to put into place,” Leingang said. “Part of that is the efficiency of it, or going back to the sustainability of it, minimal waste, things like that.”
From atop the butte, next to the library construction site, Roosevelt’s Elkhorn Ranch can be seen off in the distance to the northeast.
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“The building itself is part of the landscape, so they didn't want it to stand right out like a building,” Fore said. “It all blends right in together.”
According to Fore, native plants were harvested on site, with now a total of 51 different species planted and over 130,000 seedling plugs planted on the roof. There will be roughly 400,000 plugs throughout the project, with well over 100 different species of seeds that were harvested all locally in the Medora area.
“We've got a seeding window coming that started in August for our plantings to get all of our fall stuff in,” Fore said. “Our milestone is having our landscape 95 percent complete on the outside building by November.”
As the landscaping efforts continue on the Badlands butte, the project continues to morph into a place where the past meets the future, creating what Roosevelt himself believed is the truest measure of conservation: what we leave for generations to come.
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“I come from a historical background of renovating capitols,” Fore said. “So to me, this is more than just saving history. We're actually building this for people, for my grandkids, for their grandkids, and for other people to save later on in life, and maybe refurbish it in 100 years.”
President Theodore Roosevelt, who emerged as the leader of Republican politics in the early 1900s, is remembered as the “Conservation President,” making environmental stewardship a personal mission.
As a child, Roosevelt suffered from chronic asthma, leaving him sickly and bedridden. His father challenged his son to be more active and to strengthen himself through the outdoors by exercising, hunting, hiking, and horseback riding.
Roosevelt’s body adapted. His attacks eventually lessened, and he developed a philosophy of leading a “strenuous life,” believing that hard, physical work and confronting adversity led to success. It also made him a champion of the restorative properties of nature, the very environment that had given him his strength.
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Roosevelt went on to become one of the United States’ greatest conservationists, creating five national parks, 150 national forests, and designated over 230 million acres as public, protected land.
In 1910 in Osawatomie, Kansas, giving a speech about “New Nationalism,” Roosevelt emphasized the moral duty of conservationism, saying: “Of all the questions which can come before this nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great war, there is none which compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is for us.”
