San Mateo, Calif.-based SolarCity and Lend Lease are collaborating to provide solar energy to more than 850 military residences at Air Force communities in California and Colorado Springs, the companies announced Tuesday. The partnership represents the second phase of SolarCity’s ambitious five-year, $1 billion plan to install solar systems on up to 120,000 units of privatized military housing …
“This is not your parents’ military housing,” starts a New York Times article about the significant quality-of-life upgrade provided by the privatized family housing project at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst. Currently, 95 percent of the housing at the central New Jersey installation is occupied by service members and their families, with a waiting list of up to a year for some of the 106 detached homes. Project developer United Communities built 1,635 townhouses and detached homes, renovated 469 older homes and continues to renovate 176 other units …
Newton Square, Pa.-based Balfour Beatty Communities, a leading developer of privatized family housing for the military, will offer residents at Navy installations in the Southeast smart meter information and personalized conservation tools to help them conserve energy through a grant from the Department of Energy. The Smart Grid Data Access award from the Energy Department will fund a “Switch 4 Good” program that will test three strategies for conserving energy — baseline management by house type, digital outreach campaigns and personal energy-use coaching. The pilot study will take advantage of an effort to transfer responsibility for utility costs to families living on base at 11 Navy installations …
The Army’s lodging privatization partner has renovated six hotels and broken ground on two new ones, keeping the service on track to meet its goal of completing development of 14,300 hotel rooms at 42 posts by the spring of 2020. The six renovated facilities are located at Fort Polk, La., Fort Hood, Texas, Fort Sill, Okla., Fort Rucker, Ala., Fort Wainwright, Alaska, and Fort Hamilton, N.Y.; the two still in the process of being built are at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, and Fort Riley, Kan. …
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee passed a measure Friday to speed up the disposal of unneeded and underutilized federal property and help agencies manage existing space in a more cost-effective manner. Last week, DC 360 reported incorrectly that the committee had approved the 2012 Federal Real Property Asset Management Reform Act, S. 2178, on Wednesday. The committee, however, voted only to amend the measure with a substitute bill on Wednesday. The panel could not approve the legislation because it lacked a quorum …
The financial community still considers housing privatization projects a safe investment even as uncertainty over the scope of Pentagon budget reductions, the race for the White House and other issues loom on the horizon, according to speakers’ remarks during a conference in Washington on Tuesday. “The biggest cloud out there is the budget and how it could impact military housing,” said Florence Zeman, associate managing director for Moody’s Investors Service …
A Senate committee passed legislation Tuesday intended to help agencies shed underutilized and unneeded federal property as part of an initiative to save $15 billion over 10 years. The Federal Real Property Asset Management Reform Act, passed by the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, would streamline the current federal real property disposal process and implement measures that eliminate property mismanagement and achieve greater efficiencies within the existing disposal process. S. 2178 would create a Federal Real Property Council to help agencies better manage existing space in a more cost-effective manner and require each agency to have a senior real property management officer …
Officials held a ground breaking ceremony for a Candlewood Suites hotel at Fort Riley, Kan., earlier this month. The project is part of the Privatization of Army Lodging initiative, a partnership between the Army and a joint venture between Lend Lease (U.S.) Public Partnerships and InterContinental Hotels Group, which operates the PAL hotels under the IHG Army Hotels name …
A member of the Guam legislature plans to recommend the Defense Department turn to its family housing privatization initiative to provide housing needed to accommodate up to 5,000 Marines slated to move there from Japan. “The MHPI [Military Housing Privatization Initiative] is a workable alternative to what was previously announced by the DOD, which saw the government of Japan taking advantage of constructing military housing and reaping the benefits of the repayment by the DOD …
Officials in Okaloosa County, Fla., are wondering whether the developer of a hotel complex on land owned by Eglin Air Force Base will be required to pay property taxes. The Emerald Breeze Resort Group signed a 50-year deal with the Air Force under the enhanced use leasing program to build and manage a resort on Okaloosa Island located on Florida’s Gulf coast. During a county commission meeting last month, the developer and the Air Force said the tax question was not yet settled …