Defense Communities 360 Headlines

Northrop Grumman has committed to be an anchor tenant at an enhanced use leasing project focused on unmanned aerial systems technology and training at Grand Forks Air Force Base that a partnership composed of multiple groups is working toward. The company would join the Grand Forks Base Realignment Impact Committee, University of North Dakota, UND Aerospace Foundation and Northland Aerospace Foundation to lease space at the installation in northeastern North Dakota from the Air Force …

Looming base closures rounds in the coming years offer Dayton and the surrounding region the possibility of tremendous gains at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, along with potential risks for the local economy, officials from the Dayton Development Coalition said at a forum on Wednesday. Based on past BRAC rounds, the Springfield Air National Guard base, the Air Force Institute of Technology, the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center Business and Enterprise Directorate, and Air Force Material Command logistics and operations staff could be at risk for reductions or closure …

While the Pentagon remains committed to supporting military personnel and their families, across-the-board spending reductions and the ongoing continuing resolution funding DOD in fiscal 2013 will diminish the department’s ability to maintain the level of service it provides and to advance new initiatives, senior DOD officials told the House Armed Services’ Military Personnel Subcommittee Wednesday. “Sequestration and CR will inevitably degrade services and impede progress in most of these programs …

The Air Force will not close Pittsburgh Air Reserve Station, home of the 911th Airlift Wing and about 1,300 reservists and 300 civilians, before fiscal 2015, the service announced Wednesday. The Air Force’s decision to restore the 911th to eight assigned aircraft through Sept. 30, 2014, followed the recommendations of an intratheater airlift working group the service established at the beginning of the year after Congress scaled back its request to trim aircraft and personnel from the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve …

The Senate Wednesday approved an amendment to its version of a fiscal 2013 continuing resolution stripping $120 million in funding for a wastewater treatment facility and other civilian infrastructure projects on Guam, after Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) cited the funding as an example of pork barrel spending. The vote came after McCain and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) lifted a hold they had placed on the measure needed to keep the government running in the second half of FY 2013 …

The small businesses in communities that support military and civilian workers at installations are bracing for declining revenue as defense officials trim spending on contracts and base support services, and civilian personnel begin one-day-a-week furloughs, reports Air Force Times. “Our business is about 90 percent military,” said a used car dealer located about a half-mile from the main gates at Fort Bragg, N.C. “This is a military town. It is going to affect us all. When there’s a cut, people are scared to spend …

Two years after breaking ground on Redstone Gateway, the enhanced use leasing project at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala., is starting to take shape — the office park’s first building is complete and two more are under construction. The development team — Corporate Office Properties Trust and Jim Wilson and Associates — now is moving toward a lease agreement with the project’s first major tenant, Boeing, which will occupy 363,000 square feet in a three-building office complex …

The short-term scramble defense officials are being forced to undertake to squeeze $46 billion out of the Pentagon’s budget over the next seven months soon will be overtaken by a long-term planning exercise to reconsider what priorities the department can afford amid an austere funding climate. The current defense strategy does not take into account the possibility that sequestration would be triggered, DOD Comptroller Robert Hale said Tuesday …

This week’s hearing by the House Armed Services’ Readiness Subcommittee on the justification for a new base closure round is needed to explore “the pros and cons of a BRAC round in this budgetary and strategic environment,” according to Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.), the panel’s new chairman. In a written statement Wittman’s office provided 360, the congressman does not say whether he would support or oppose the Pentagon’s anticipated request for new base closure rounds, but said the hearing allows the committee “to get out front” on the question of whether a new BRAC round is necessary …

The spending package unveiled Monday by the Senate Appropriations Committee to fund the government through Sept. 30 does not grant DOD any special reprogramming authority to help it cope with the $46 billion cut it will suffer under sequestration. Senate appropriators wanted to provide all federal agencies additional budget flexibility to mitigate the cuts, but were deterred by House Republicans who said they would not go along with that plan …