Posts Tagged ‘economic development’

Business alliances supporting Maryland’s military installations have played a variety of roles in recent years, working with local officials to accommodate BRAC growth, lobbying for new missions, sponsoring on-base improvements and helping to boost economic development. A primary function of the groups is helping contractors understand how to do business with installations, but the partnerships extend much further …

The local redevelopment authorities for the former Norton and George Air Force bases in San Bernardino County, Calif., plan to ask a state court for injunctions exempting them from last year’s law eliminating the state’s 400 redevelopment agencies. The Inland Valley Development Agency, the LRA for Norton AFB, will argue that it was not established under the same legislation that allows local governments to create municipal redevelopment agencies …

When Washington decided to refocus the nation’s space program several years ago by grounding shuttles at Cape Canaveral, the Brevard County, Fla., workforce was also poised for a rough landing. Retiring the space shuttle program meant more than 8,000 direct jobs would be eliminated and 13,000 additional jobs would be lost indirectly, according to Lisa Rice, president of Brevard Workforce, who noted the situation is similar to what communities face when military installations close …

With the Federal City project — the redevelopment of the former Naval Support Activity New Orleans — as a backdrop, the Treasury Department announced Thursday the selection of 70 organizations nationwide to receive $3.6 billion under a federal tax credit program designed to spur growth in low-income and distressed communities. The Treasury Department used the Federal City project to announce the New Markets Tax Credit awards to highlight the 155-acre development’s reliance on the federal program …

The loss of Fort Drum in a future BRAC round would be devastating to the North Country economy of New York, resulting in “the end of life as we know it,” according to a column in the Watertown Daily Times. Not so clear are what steps the area can take to leverage Fort Drum’s economic assets, assuming the post survives …

Since 2009, Fayetteville, N.C., has been among the nation’s leaders in several economic indicators, yet economic growth in Cumberland County, which borders Fort Bragg’s southeastern perimeter, has failed to meet expectations regarding the impact of BRAC, reports the Fayetteville Observer. Projections that the addition of Forces Command and Reserve Command to Bragg would attract 1,000 defense contractors remain unfilled …

The promise of an 8 percent drop in DOD spending over the coming decade may have an outsized impact on many of the nation’s high-tech clusters. Military research dollars are partially responsible for the development of Silicon Valley, the Research Triangle in North Carolina, the Route 128 corridor outside Boston and a variety of companies in Northern Virginia …

Mission growth at Fort Belvoir already has boosted economic development along the historic Route 1 corridor in Northern Virginia, increasing demand for office space from defense contractors and raising hotel occupancy rates …

With all of its members appointed, the newly created Florida Defense Support Task Force is expected shortly to begin efforts to prepare the state for a future BRAC round, attract more R&D and other defense contracting expenditures to the state, and make the state more friendly for service members and their families …

North Carolina ranks third in the number of active-duty personnel but only takes in 1 percent of the nation’s expenditures on military contracting, North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue said last week. That gap needs to be narrowed, she said at Fort Bragg during the last in a series of military summits intended to strengthen the state’s defense economy …