Posts Tagged ‘base redevelopment/environmental cleanup’

The Fort Ord Reuse Authority would gain an additional six years to guide the redevelopment of the former Army post in Monterey, Calif., under a measure passed last month by the state legislature. The original bill introduced in the Assembly would have extended the reuse authority’s life for 10 years, but a change in the Senate cut the extension to six years, reported the Monterey County Herald. The reuse authority is due to expire in June 2014 under its charter legislation …

Before acknowledging the full extent of radioactive contamination at the former Navy base at Treasure Island, the Navy attempted to prevent California officials from expressing their concerns about the cleanup in writing, reports the Bay Citizen. After discovering radioactive waste in unexpected locations on the site, the California Department of Public Health pressed the Navy to conduct additional testing. Navy officials, however, tried to discourage the regulators from documenting their concerns in writing, according to internal emails …

The General Services Administration’s sale of a former Navy property in Dallas has left the 2,400 employees of the Triumph Aerostructures-Vought Aircraft Division plant located there anxious about their jobs. The Triumph Group, parent of Triumph Aerostructures, has said the site’s purchaser will double the facility’s operating costs, forcing it to reconsider its operating practices, reported the Dallas Business Journal. One option is to relocate the plant which assembles aircraft parts, the parent company said …

Radioactive contamination at the former Navy base at Treasure Island is more widespread than previously reported, according to a new Navy report and other documents obtained by the Bay Citizen. A draft report completed by the Navy earlier this month acknowledges that the island, located in San Francisco Bay, was used in the 1940s to repair and scrap ships exposed to nuclear testing in the Pacific. One source was a nuclear training ship used at Treasure Island that had been intentionally immersed in radiation. The California Department of Public Health had asked for the report after discovering radioactive waste in unexpected locations …

While the realignment of a mission due to BRAC typically forces civilian workers to decide whether to move with their job or not, several hundred employees of the Army’s Communications-Electronics Command have kept their homes in central New Jersey and are commuting to Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. Some are making the four-hour, roundtrip commute daily while others return to New Jersey only for the weekend, reports the Baltimore Sun …

The Great Plains Development Authority on Wednesday signed the deed to take possession of 6,116 acres at the former Kansas Army Ammunition Plant, marking the official start of the effort for Labette County in southeast Kansas to convert the facility into the Great Plains Industrial Park. The LRA obtained the parcel under an economic development conveyance, which calls for the authority to make an upfront payment of $49,999 to the Army. The LRA will pay the balance of the $3.5 million purchase price over a period of 10 years through a revenue-sharing agreement with the Army …

Filling space vacated by the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., is slow-going, but not as bad as commonly perceived, Michael Fascitelli, president and chief executive of Vornado Realty Trust, told investors last week. “Washington today is experiencing the perfect storm: BRAC, the GSA trying to be more efficient, a presidential election and a budget standoff creating uncertainty. But we expect that moderate growth and limited supply over the next several years will stabilize the market,” Fascitelli said, according to the Washington Post. Of the 2.4 million square feet of vacancies in Arlington slated to be created through the last round of base closures for Vornado’s Washington unit, Vornado/Charles E. Smith, the real estate investment trust has re-leased or begun redeveloping 818,000 square feet. But the new leases often require the firm to lower its rates significantly.

The LRA responsible for redeveloping the former Naval Air Station South Weymouth, Mass., is close to reaching agreement with the Weymouth school system over how much it will cost to enroll school-age children of residents at the SouthField reuse project. Weymouth, located about 15 miles south of Boston, is required to educate school-age children living at SouthField under legislation passed in 2008 but the South Shore Tri-Town Development Corp. must cover the cost …

Lennar Corp. is several months away from signing a term sheet with the state-supported China Development Bank to invest $1.7 billion in Treasure Island and Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, two key base redevelopment projects in San Francisco. San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee last week said the loan “is very important to our city, and we’re not letting it go,” Bloomberg News reported …

Last week’s return of the former Fort Ritchie, Md., by Corporate Office Properties Trust to the entity originally created to oversee its reuse, PenMar Development Corp., followed a November 2009 federal court ruling that the Army failed to adequately assess the environmental impact of COPT’s new master plan. The decision stemmed from a lawsuit filed by two area residents claiming that COPT’s plan was significantly different than the one approved by Pen Mar in 1997 …