It's a shame that that Brownsville deal fell through. At least the Freightway is getting more and more of its airport projects started, which should be pretty useful in the future.
Wouldn't be surprised if Scott AFB doesn't make the cut simply because it's in a blue state
I honestly think that it will do more with the fact that Scott being known for its role in logistics then the missile program or association with any space or missile program within the Air Force. Could be mistaken if missing something Niece married an Air Force officer who has done his stint in a Dakota Missile silo as minuteman, rotation through Vandenburg AFB as instructor, and now stationed in Omaha. Could easily see it going to Omaha, Colorado or even Cali.
But Scott AFB becoming a joint base couldn't hurt its long term viability and good use of its existing earthling space, pun intended.. What the region does have for it is the presence of Boeing which can't hurt but probably overstated in helping with any selection.
An extra 860,000 SF of office and parking is nothing for the NGA site. There's plenty of room. And if they want space for future expansions, there is more land available to the north (not that anyone wants to see any more homes demolished). It's not like they are going to be launching rockets or landing spaceplanes here.
And the site would already provide almost all of the required hardened and shielded military and intelligence communication and emergency power generation infrastructure, screening and security facilities, etc. Plus, the site is already being developed by the USAF...
Seems like a no-brainer. That said, they generally avoid locating critical infrastructure / personnel immediately adjacent to each other (not that it would make much difference).
Seems like a no-brainer. That said, they generally avoid locating critical infrastructure / personnel immediately adjacent to each other (not that it would make much difference).
The logic of avoiding critical govt infrastructure next to each other pretty much went out the door when District of Columbia was created by the Federal Government. But I find it more ironic that the push to move Federal employees out of DC to the burbs has a lot to do with developers craving prime real estate near the mall and the iconic structures built for government ops as much as anything else... Just thinking of the whole thing going with FBI desiring a new HQ and POTUS trying to facilitate it in a covid relief bill.
Seems like a no-brainer. That said, they generally avoid locating critical infrastructure / personnel immediately adjacent to each other (not that it would make much difference).
The logic of avoiding critical govt infrastructure next to each other pretty much went out the door when District of Columbia was created by the Federal Government. But I find it more ironic that the push to move Federal employees out of DC to the burbs has a lot to do with developers craving prime real estate near the mall and the iconic structures built for government ops as much as anything else... Just thinking of the whole thing going with FBI desiring a new HQ and POTUS trying to facilitate it in a covid relief bill.
The FBI has been trying to get a new massive ($1.4 billion was the initial appropriations request), suburban HQ campus built just like the NGA's shiny new HQ, since 2011.
Site selection was narrowed to three sites, two in MD, and one in VA, but the final announcement was postponed in December 2016 because the necessary funds to proceed were not allocated by Congress that year, in 2016...
And the push to the burbs began a very long time ago, in the Eisenhower administration.
This may have been mentioned before but NGA is using bricks they salvaged from the buster brown building in the design of the building. Thought that was pretty interesting.
Trump wants it next to his hotel in DC.....nothing to see here folks just a grifter in Chief.....
Lol. The Hoover Building is already next to his hotel. It's been there for 45 years, and there was little projected increase in employees from the proposal, as some departments were to be relocated in existing GSA properties around the country.
Furthermore, rebuilding on the current site was identified as a viable alternative in 2012 by the Obama Admin. But some folks at the FBI got jealous of the NGA's shiny new suburban campus, and some VA and MD politician-grifters on the other side of the aisle had developer friends who wanted a piece of the action.
Cost estimates ballooned because they wanted to use said private developers for the suburban FBI campus (developers who also planned huge, adjacent mixed-use projects). The cost of land acquisition was to be offset by giving the developer the existing Hoover Building as partial payment (on top of a large developer fee). Problem was, they vastly overestimated the value of the existing building, as it's falling apart and nobody wants it...
Here's some pics of the NGA site I took this afternoon. There are several large construction temp buildings on site and a pretty big parking lot too. Also pictured is our favorite 2-walled structure that lives in perpetuity.
The one with three beds that'll take three years to build? Wonder if McKee's house has more than three beds? Serious question. If this thing eventually gets built, will it be the first thing in the City McKee has developed that even has a bed in it?
Not a whole lot to see yet, but you can see that they have excavated a very large area (at least 1/4 of the site) down to about 20' to 25' below street elevation. It looks like the whole footprint of the main building, the two parking garages, and everything between them, will be below-grade level(s), or at least have large below-grade connections. Unless...maybe they plan on building it all in a hole, with a big moat?