Yesterday workers at a development near Nats Park found a 1,000-pound military ordnance.

When workers at a planned mixed-use development not far from Nats Park in Southeast stumbled across an unexploded 1,000-pound military ordnance yesterday, it wasn’t a surprise—it was just part of turning what was once a weapons plant into what will eventually be a Harris Teeter and residential complex.

According to Gary McManus, spokesman for ForestCity, the developer in charge of The Yards, work on the site—which served as the Naval Gun Factory from the late 1800s to the mid-1900s—has stopped on a number of occasions as workers doing remediation on the land find tokens left behind by the factory.

“Several times over the past several weeks of excavation, sitework has needed to be stopped temporarily due to the unearthing of munitions debris from the former operations of the Navy Yard on the site, as well as for archaeological artifact findings,” he wrote in an email.

“The ordnance uncovered as a result of the excavation process are components of various size artillery shells, most in the range of 18-30 inches in length. These are mostly partially assembled munitions and not completed shells. In each case of discovery, sitework is stopped, MPD Bomb Squad is called in and they make the assessment as to whether to involve the Explosive Ordnance Division (EOD) of the Army from Ft. Belvoir to safely remove the shell components for testing and safe disposal,” he added.

It’s not much a surprise that workers are digging up relics from the gun factory’s past—by the end of World War II, it was the world’s largest naval armaments factory, employing over 10,000 workers. McManus said that most buried artifacts and debris—which have included the foundations of several homes on the site prior to the Navy Yard and a Civil War-era cannon—were buried in the first 10 to 15 feet of soil.

Will these explosive discoveries (pun intended) have any effect on the pace of work on the development? It depends on how much more they find, McManus said.

“It is unclear at this point if this series of temporary, unscheduled, work stoppages will impact the completion of the residential/retail complex to be developed on the site. It depends upon how many more stoppages are experienced and the collective length of lost progress time.”