BRAC Impact on the Baltimore area

The latest round of military base closings and realignments is due to have a significant impact on Maryland and the Baltimore area, especially near Fort Meade and Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG.)

This post will just be a roundup of the most recent news on the BRAC front and is by no means comprehensive. This story will continue to be covered in the coming weeks, months and years.
The Baltimore Sun had a story Saturday that detailed the current situation at Fort Meade. Specifically, Trammell Crow is building at least 2 million square feet of office space for government contractors near the fort and two golf courses to replace the two course being displaced by new construction (that includes a new HQ for DISA, a.k.a. the Defense Information Systems Agency, and new buildings for the NSA.)

The cover story of February 2007 issue of Corridor Inc. detailed Enhanced Use Leases, the method by which the Army is facilitating the Trammell Crow deal as well as a similar deal at Ft. Detrick near Frederick. In 2002, the federal government amended EUL rules to allow construction to be included under the framework. 540 acres are involved at Meade, including 173 for the office space just off-post. CB Richard Ellis, which owns Trammell Crow, estimates that the deal will cost the company $700 million. Two locations and 1500 acres are involved at APG.

The article in The Sun this weekend reports that Anne Arundel County Executive John Leopold is concerned about the fact that the county will bear the costs of upgrading roads and transit. The article points out the Trammell Crow project at Meade is expected to have a $1 billion impact on the county but that county offficials estimate that transportation costs will be in the $5 billion range. Included in that cost is several road construction projects and expansion of the Green Line of the D.C. Metrorail system to the area.

Leopold has asked for money from Congress to help cover those costs, but members of the Maryland delegation, including Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, said that money will not be fronted to the county for expenses. Instead, money will be allocated to the state to deal with BRAC growth and the state will direct the funding to the counties affected. A special tax district could be set up to deal with the costs, according to one unnamed Army official in the article.

At Aberdeen, Opus East LLC of Rockville is expected to break ground in November on a 2.5 million square foot business and tech park. That project will be known as GATE and county officials are working to identifying funding sources for infrastructure upgrades. According to WBAL-AM, Harford County Executive David Craig addressed a town hall meeting last night at Bel Air High School to discuss the county’s BRAC plans. 8,200 jobs are coming to the county as a result of the realignment that is closing Fort Monmouth in New Jersey. According to on-air reports not on the WBAL website, the Harford County plan is being used as a model by state officials for other county plans.

Governor Martin O’Malley has appointed a sub-cabinet to deal with BRAC issues. Heading it is Lt. Governor Anthony G. Brown, who is a veteran of the war in Iraq. A Q&A with Brown in the March issue of Corridor Inc. discusses the basics. A press release on Brown’s website also discusses the issue in more detail. 25,000 new households are expected to move to Maryland by 2011 as a result of the latest BRAC round. Over 40% of those are expected to move to the Baltimore-Washington area. Brown identifies schools as one area that growth will affect. He also says that both Meade and APG will receive full attention of the state, even though more jobs are coming to APG.

In response to a question, Brown also says that county executives like the idea of the sub-cabinet to help coordinate the issues at the state level. I would venture a guess that Craig in Harford and the Howard County Executive (quoted in one of the links above) probably agree with this assessment. I’d also guess that Leopold in Anne Arundel doesn’t agree so much. That seems to be the only potential flashpoint as things move forward.

In other fairly recent news closer to D.C., the area around Andrews Air Force Base in Prince George’s County has been designated a National Defense and Technology Corridor as county officials seek to lure contractors and government agencies, including the MD Dept. of Homeland Security, to the area.

Today’s Washington Post also points out that members of the MD congressional delegation have expressed concerns to the Defense Department about an environmental study being waived relating to expansion plans (arising from the BRAC-planned closure of Walter Reed) at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda.

Inside Charm City will continue to monitor and report on this issue as time goes on.

(Jeff Quinton, the author of this post and publisher of this blog, appeared on MSNBC in 2005 when the BRAC list was initially released to discuss reaction in the blogosphere. He has also written about the BRAC process for World Defense Review.)