As pile-drivers pummeled the ground outside, hundreds of visitors yesterday milled around the courtyard of the existing USS Arizona Memorial visitor center and went about doing what 5,000 people a day have done there for the past 29 years.

Walking through exhibits, waiting for the movie to start, using the restrooms, snacking, shopping and absorbing the significance of where they were, visitors seemed aware of but unaffected by the intermittent pounding noise that was coming from just outside the gift shop.

"It's just kind of like, there," said Seattle resident Will Medlock, 14, with a shrug.

Told the National Park Service is building a $58 million replacement center twice the size of the current facility, brother Alex Medlock, 16, said it is worth the minor inconvenience.

"It's a national monument," he said.

Memorial officials are breathing a sigh of relief that the disruption was minimal on the first day of the first of two pile-driving phases in the 1 1/2-year project.

"We planned for the worst and hoped for the best," said Eileen Martinez, chief of interpretation for the Arizona Memorial.

The service has been concerned about what effect congestion and noise from construction might have on the solemn nature of the site.

The Arizona Memorial is the state's top tourist attraction, with up to 5,000 visitors a day.

As many as three piles between 55 and 90 feet long are being driven into each of 187 holes to depths of 140 to 200 feet, depending on how far down it takes to reach a point that won't give.

National Park Service officials say the pounding will take place intermittently for about three weeks, and then for another three weeks further down the line.

The piles are necessary to hold up the foundation of the new, 26,000-square-foot facility.

Paul DePrey, superintendent of the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument, which includes the Arizona Memorial, said he was most worried that the rumbling would create a distraction in the two theaters at the far end of the courtyard.

Visitors are required to view the film before they can ride a ferry out to the actual memorial over the sunken battleship and grave for many of the Arizona's 1,177 crewmen who lost their lives on Dec. 7, 1941.

DePrey said that while sitting in one of the viewings, he could only hear the pounding "very faintly" in the background. It doesn't hurt, he said, that the two theaters have a quality sound system.

Martinez said that staff working on the deck of the memorial reported they could not hear the pounding at all.

SWITCH TO BOWFIN

To the mauka side, across busy Kamehameha Highway, 24-year-old Paige White spent the morning at home in a Makalapa Manor apartment that has a backyard that overlooks the visitor center and construction site about one-quarter mile away. "We didn't hear nothing from inside the house," White said.

Told of the pile-driving and the construction project, White said: "We were wondering what they were going to do there."

Park officials worked hard to minimize disruption. Ten-foot construction fencing covered in black felting now walls off some areas. "How do you get to the Bowfin submarine?" was a frequent question. Signs with big arrows pointing the way are up.

Beginning next week — possibly Wednesday — tickets for the Arizona Memorial documentary film and boat launch will be distributed at the adjacent Bowfin submarine park, where a lot of visitors now have to park with the visitor center construction going on, especially when the site is busiest during the morning.

"We don't want people to park there, drop their bag off, come over here, get their ticket and find out it's going to be three to four hours before they see the documentary film," DePrey said.

By checking in at the Bowfin, visitors can better divide their time between the museums and memorials in the area, officials said.

Built in 1980, the current visitor center hosts about 1.5 million people annually at a facility designed to accommodate half that number.

Construction of the new facility started early this year, and by Dec. 7, 2010 — the projected grand opening date — the visitor center and museum will include six more acres of land, for a total of 17.4 acres.

The new facility will be nearly double the size of the current visitor center, and have an expanded interpretation of the attack on Pearl Harbor and the war in the Pacific, officials said.

SINKING BUILDING

Part of the reason a new shoreside facility is being built is because the existing visitor center, built on fill material, has settled more than 30 inches — a full foot more than anticipated.

John Teichert, the National Park Service's project engineer for the renovation, said the engineers who put up the building three decades ago knew it would sink but didn't think it would be happening at as quick a rate as it has.

"It's a pretty good building," Teichert said. "It's just a heavy building on soft soil."

DePrey said the grounds of the visitor center were actually part of the harbor in 1941. The shoreline in those days was above the small cliff that separates the facility from Kamehameha Highway.

That explains the need for piles.

Construction crews are pounding piles as deep as 200 feet in a portion of the existing parking lot to firm up the foundation of the new facility.

Twelve "test piles" were to be put in place this week in what was the back end of the parking lot between the visitor center and USS Bowfin Submarine Museum and Park.

That location will be used for a building that will house a ticketing gateway for all the museums in the area, including the Bowfin, Battleship Missouri Memorial and Pacific Aviation Museum-Pearl Harbor.

Additionally, the two-story facility will house restrooms, a classroom, store and vending. Old facilities will be demolished after a move is made into new quarters.

The National Park Service plans to keep the memorial open throughout the construction.

"I don't think we've ever had as complex of a project as this," Teichert said. "This is the whole park operation, and you are disturbing everything for almost a two-year period. It's a very difficult thing."

VISITORS APPROVE

Veterans and visitors alike are ready for a new visitor center.

Will Lehner, who was on the destroyer USS Ward when it spotted and fired on a 78-foot Japanese mini-submarine around 6:30 a.m. on Dec. 7, 1941, outside Pearl Harbor, was at the visitor center Tuesday.

"The second shot (by the Ward), I saw it when it hit the sub," said Lehner, 88, who is visiting from Wisconsin. "The sub turned over a little bit and then righted itself."

The Ward had scored a direct hit, and with the additional help of depth charges, the sub sank into oblivion.

Lehner said the Arizona Memorial visitor center can use the extra space.

"I'm glad they are doing it," he said.

Matthew Blundon, 31, who was visiting from Kansas, echoed those thoughts as he looked at a model of the new campus-like visitor center design.

"I think having a larger area for people to sit and wait for the theater would be good. It seems very congested," he said.