MILITARY BASE REDEVELOPMENT -- Site Selection magazine, July 2006

Model Success Stories from Past Base Closure Rounds: Rural and Urban

Before and after images from the Fort Pickett redevelopment effort

In light of the very difficult challenges facing closing base communities, two illustrative developmental successes from past rounds provide guidance, one a rural installation and the other an urban installation. In both, comprehensive base reuse planning and well-honed, surgical DoD negotiation strategies guaranteed success.

Rural: Fort Pickett, Virginia, where then-Virginia Governor George Allen's vision and his experienced counsel negotiated a property transfer from the Army and seamlessly implemented its base reuse plan, including the expansion of economic redevelopment activity in a five-county region;
Urban: Naval Training Center San Diego, now "Liberty Station," where then-Mayor Susan Golding's Administration, including its experienced redevelopment chief, selected and continually worked jointly with an established, astute developer to carry out the publicly adopted reuse plan, including selling all new homes before they were even built.

Singular leadership from top officials – particularly Governors or Mayors, in concert with insightful developers state and local community reuse goals, and consequently did not allow diffuse, often-conflicting parochial politics to divert them from their determined redevelopment and reuse missions;
Preparation and execution of an aggressive, comprehensive strategy, addressing the interdependent and complicated issues and needs of government agencies set forth above, in order to secure agreement with the federal government to assist the developer, local community and the state in achieving their goals.