Army Builds New Facility In Buckeye

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
Arizona Republic (Phoenix)
June 15, 2008 By Rebekah L. Sanders, The Arizona Republic
The Arizona Army National Guard and the Army Reserve are building two multimillion-dollar, shared training centers in the state and closing a base as part of a national program to trim military infrastructure and save money.
The $19.5 million joint-use readiness center under construction in Buckeye is expected to open in 2009.
Military engineers are designing a $33 million complex in Marana, 20 miles north of Tucson, which will begin construction in two years.
The bases are part of a nationwide Base Realignment and Closure strategy mandated by Congress in 2005 to cut back on military spending by closing hundreds of facilities, ending leases and consolidating operations.
"The bottom line is to reduce infrastructure and (gain) long-term cost savings," said Gailyn Porter, a Scottsdale consultant on BRAC projects in several states.
The changes would save $2.5 billion annually, the Army has reported.
In Arizona, the program calls for building two Armed Forces Reserve Centers to consolidate Guard and Reserve training and ending the lease on Deer Valley Army Reserve Center in northwest Phoenix.
The steel beams of the Buckeye complex are rising at the foot of the White Tank Mountains. The site, along a dirt stretch of Miller Road about a mile north of Interstate 10, was home to little more than shotgun shells, discarded washing machines and desert brush.
"This was just raw desert when we came here,", said Russell Carter, deputy director of engineering and construction for the Guard. "There was nothing."
For years, local target shooters used the area for practice, leaving shells and debris strewn across the dusty hills.
"When we started building, we still heard gunshots all the time," Carter said, although that has dissipated.
Features at new center
By April, the training center will have six buildings capable of handling 720 soldiers during once-a-month drill weekends and two-week annual training exercises.
The complex will feature a vehicle-maintenance shop, fitness center, library, classrooms, administrative offices, two large storage units and an assembly hall, plus space for at least 100 Humvees, trailers and trucks.
No tanks or tracked vehicles will be stored there, and there will be no shooting range, Carter said.
Military-police, transportation, artillery and signal units will use the facility for training and running convoys, said Lt. Chris Watson, the Guard's director of engineering and design. Four units will come from the closing Deer Valley base and three will transfer from Papago Military Reservation, freeing up space at the central Phoenix location near Papago Park.
"The Arizona Army National Guard is getting bigger and bigger," Watson said. "We have a lot of units that are packing into the armory (at Papago). It'll take some of the load off."
Not moving Papago base
He said the move is not a step toward closing the Papago base, near the park's signature red buttes, Phoenix Zoo and Desert Botanical Garden.
In 2006, a group of Phoenix leaders and real-estate executives recommended the Guard relocate its base as part of a redevelopment study. Guard officials rejected the idea at the time.
"That's going to stay there," Watson said.
Debbie Abele, executive director of the non-profit Papago Salado Association, which commissioned the study, said the proposal was interesting but impractical.
"It would be a massive undertaking," she said, that would include environmental cleanup and a long process of bureaucratic approval.
Instead, planners are focusing on improving the existing site, she said.
In the West Valley, besides agreeing to annex the land, Buckeye's relationship with the new training center is minimal.
The Guard's contractor, Tempe-based Sundt Construction Co., dug a well and septic system for the complex instead of connecting to town water and sewer lines.
The center likely will not create local jobs. The 30 to 35 full-time staffers keeping operations running during the week will come from the military, Watson said.
The Marana complex will connect to the Silverbell Army Heliport, expanding the base for Guard and Reserve training, said Porter. It is expected to open in 2011.
 
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