Very soon, the metro Atlanta Army installations of Fort McPherson and Fort Gillem and the Navy Supply Corps School in Athens will be shuttered permanently. The properties will begin to be put to new, and, I would submit, higher and better uses.
The federal base closure process is a slow but inexorable one. We are now into the sixth and final year of the closure process that began in 2005. The bases must close by September.
The Navy will beat the deadline in Athens by some months, completing its work and turning over the property in March.
All three of these bases have had a long legacy of service to the nation and the community. But the congressionally established Base Realignment and Closure Commission determined that the United States was better off if these bases were closed. And despite the long ties that the surrounding communities have had to these bases, the residents of Georgia will be better off too.
The first to be put into active reuse will be the Navy Supply Corps School. The 58-acre site served as a college campus for decades before the state sold it to the Navy in the 1950s. It will become UGA’s Health Sciences Campus, housing the joint MCG (Medical College of Georgia)/UGA Medical Partnership and the UGA College of Public Health.
Like many good decisions, the reconveyance of the Navy School campus to the University System of Georgia today seems obvious.
But there were competing ideas for the site, and it took foresight by the University of Georgia administration, buy-in from the Athens-Clarke County government, authorization from the Board of Regents and financial support from the governor and the General Assembly for it to happen. It will quickly become a success story for base redevelopment.
At Fort Gillem in Forest Park, 920 acres will be conveyed out of federal hands. The Army used Fort Gillem primarily as a warehouse and distribution site. And that is its future. Convenient to I-285, I-75, rail lines and Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, it is in a prime location for industrial redevelopment.
There are challenges nonetheless. The real estate market today is not good. Substantial and costly infrastructure improvements will be needed. But the city of Forest Park, small but well-managed, has teamed with an experienced and well-funded private-sector master developer, a joint venture of Weeks-Robinson Properties and LNR Property Corp. It is well positioned for a successful redevelopment.
Of the three, the greatest opportunities and challenges lie at Fort McPherson, a 488-acre site in south Atlanta. The centerpiece of the redevelopment is proposed to be a campus for research, development and commercialization of biotechnology to serve as a catalyst for the expansion of the bioscience industry in Georgia.
This redevelopment could have an enormous impact, creating a Georgia version of North Carolina’s Research Triangle. But it is also the biggest lift. To succeed, a market has to be created at the Fort McPherson site. That will require substantial time and resources, commitments by the city and state and patience. In pursuit of this vision the city should avail itself of help from all quarters, including the substantial resources and experience offered by the private sector.
After years in the process, the base closure date is now less than one year away. Whether the sites are redeveloped to their full potential will be the product of a complex mix of leadership, resources, timing and market conditions. That is a tall order, but the opportunity is too great to waste.
Robert Tritt co-chairs the military bases and communities practice of McKenna Long & Aldridge.
About the Author
Keep Reading
The Latest
Featured
