In an effort to generate innovative solutions to the challenge of re-envisioning closed military bases, a San Francisco-based design advocacy organization is hosting an international competition for architects, designers and community groups to collaborate on plans for reusing local installations that have been decommissioned or are scheduled for closure …
Looming cuts in defense spending, along with the prospect of a new BRAC round, should prompt communities that host military installations or weapons manufacturing facilities to consider relying on the civilian economy, peace activist Sanford Gottlieb writes in the Huffington Post. The nation’s experience with five rounds of BRAC demonstrates that communities that suffer a downsizing can reinvent themselves, partially through the help of federal aid …
The budget for the Office of Economic Adjustment will rise $40.9 million to $91.8 million under the fiscal 2012 omnibus spending package approved last week, primarily because of three civilian projects intended to support the realignment of Marines to Guam. The president’s request for the agency included funding for the purchase of school buses for public schools in Guam; construction of a cultural repository to preserve artifacts unearthed during military construction; and the construction …
The Navy last week completed the closing and initial property transfer of about 680 acres at the former Naval Air Station South Weymouth, Mass., to the South Shore Tri-Town Development Corp. through an economic development conveyance. LNR Property LLC will be responsible for the estimated $25 million cost of the conveyance; about half of the compensation relies on revenue sharing …
The community surrounding Umatilla Chemical Depot in northern Oregon received an early but well-earned Christmas gift last week, the result of a provision in the conference agreement for the fiscal 2012 defense authorization bill requiring the reuse of the depot to follow the BRAC process and allowing the community to determine the site’s future …
Officials last week marked the Air Force’s conveyance of the final piece of 2,331 acres at England Air Force Base transferred to the England Authority since the installation closed in 1992. The base’s conversion into England Airpark in central Louisiana is considered one of the best examples of the redevelopment of a BRAC installation …
The reuse project at the former Fort Devens outside of Boston continues to grow despite the struggling economy and the closure of a large manufacturing plant earlier this year. A second hotel, a Hilton Garden Inn, opened on Devens Common last month. The first phase of New England Studios, a planned, $100 million television and movie studio complex, is expected to break ground shortly …
The third time did not prove to be the charm as the General Services Administration rejected the single bid it received from a local developer during last month’s auction for the former Stratford Army Engine Plant in Connecticut. Hartmann Development submitted a bid as part of a $1 billion plan to build a resort …
With the Fort Ord Reuse Authority set to expire in 2014, 20 years after it was established by the California legislature, local officials held a public forum last week to discuss the LRA’s future. Leaders broadly agreed the authority should be extended beyond its June 30, 2014, expiration date, leaving the primary question how to accomplish that …
The Navy will conduct an online auction for 2,036 acres at the former Naval Station Roosevelt Roads located on the eastern tip of Puerto Rico starting Feb. 13, the BRAC Program Management Office said this week. The auction will offer two separate parcels …