Posts Tagged ‘defense real estate’

The Air Force is scheduled to hold a ceremony Monday morning in San Antonio to mark the merger of the service’s three civil engineering field operating agencies into a new organization responsible for installation support. The Air Force Civil Engineer Center merges the missions of the Air Force Real Property Agency and the Air Force Center for Engineering and the Environment with the Air Force Civil Engineer Support Agency in an effort to streamline operations and reduce manpower amid a climate of constrained funding …

The New Orleans Federal Alliance and the Algiers Development District so far have been unable to reach an agreement over jointly managing the Federal City project, a public-private development located at the former Naval Support Activity New Orleans. On Monday, the Algiers board agreed to send NOFA a new version of a proposed cooperative endeavor agreement for overseeing the mixed-used development anchored by the 29-acre Marine Corps Support Facility New Orleans …

Fitch Ratings, one of the major credit rating agencies, last week updated its criteria for rating military housing bonds. Fitch has identified five key rating drivers that affect the credit quality of military housing bonds: basic allowance for housing and occupancy, existing unit cash flow, meeting project construction schedule, BRAC and base essentiality …

The Navy has terminated ongoing negotiations with a developer over an enhanced use lease that would have turned 104 acres at Saufley Field into a research/business park due to the cost of moving several facilities to nearby Naval Air Station Pensacola on the Florida Panhandle. The Navy would need to move three commands at Saufley, an effort which would require costly renovation of buildings at the naval air station, for the effort to go ahead …

Only a little more than half of the family housing at Aberdeen Proving Ground in northeastern Maryland is occupied by active members of the military, a direct consequence of the installation’s shift from a training base to a research and development mission largely staffed by civilians. Civilian federal workers and military retirees are living in 44 percent of the facility’s occupied homes, according to Picerne Military Housing, the Army’s housing privatization partner …

The Veterans Affairs Medical Center in west Los Angeles has generated at least $28 million in rental income over the last dozen years from a variety of enterprises unrelated to helping veterans, including a baseball stadium for UCLA and a laundry facility for Marriott Hotels, reports NPR. The 400-acre medical center is able to skirt legislation preventing it from leasing property by “sharing” it, according to NPR, which estimated its rental income could be even higher than $40 million …

An environmental group on Monday planned to file a lawsuit in federal court blocking the Navy’s plan to redevelop the Broadway Complex on the San Diego waterfront. The goal of the Navy Broadway Coalition is to alter the Navy’s plan to build a new headquarters, primarily by providing more open space and fewer hotels, reported KPBS Radio. The Navy reached an agreement with a local developer in 2006 to build it new offices in exchange for a 99-year lease to develop the waterfront property, meeting a deadline imposed by the 2005 BRAC Commission for avoiding closure of the site …

The path to a streamlined process for disposing of thousands of unneeded federal properties while raising billions in government revenue is filled with a variety of roadblocks, including competing legislative proposals, opposition over an exemption to a rule intended to benefit homeless groups and overly optimistic valuations of surplus buildings. Later this month, the Senate is expected to debate a proposal introduced by Thomas Carper (D-Del.) that would establish a five-year pilot program for agencies to eliminate excess properties, reports CQ Today …

The leading proponent of legislation that would create a civilian BRAC commission to expedite the disposal of thousands of unneeded federal properties is pushing the General Services Administration to adopt his proposal, citing this week’s appointment of Dorothy Robyn, DOD’s installations chief, to commissioner of GSA’s Public Buildings Service as a possible first step toward that goal. “We are hopeful that Dr. Robyn’s experience working with the DOD’s BRAC process will encourage greater innovation and cost efficiency within the GSA by utilizing CPRA [Civilian Property Realignment Act] to streamline the process and ensure the effective and efficient sale or consolidation of these properties …

The Oak Park neighborhood at Fort Knox, Ky., will become the largest residential LED community in the world after Lend Lease replaces the lighting in 164 homes with energy-efficient light bulbs, the developer announced Wednesday. Lend Lease, the Army’s family housing privatization partner at Fort Knox, will work with PolyBrite International to install more than 9,500 Borealis LED light bulbs in the neighborhood by the end of October. The retrofit is expected to reduce the community’s annual energy costs by $34,000 …