The project comes as a welcome tonic to a community that just saw its Marine Corps Logistics Base targeted for realignment by the Department of Defense Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC), which will result in the elimination of some 400 jobs at the base, which employs 1,720. But it's not the first time Southern California has found opportunity in the wake of BRAC closure: Another closed base in the area, George Air Force Base, closed in 1992, and has now been remade into Victorville's Southern California Logistics Airport (SCLA). Yet another, Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, is seeing 1,316 of its acres (533 hectares) redeveloped as the Orange County Great Park in Irvine.
   Ironically, it was in Victorville that Wal-Mart recently failed to get a store constructed because of an incomplete environmental impact report. This time around, the environment is front and center, as the company announced in its press release its intent to "green its fleet." That won't be anything new for Barstow either: Even as the state plays hardball fighting LNG terminal proposals on its coast, the city in 2005 opened an alternative fueling station that included compressed natural gas and LNG as fuel. And several solar energy collection plants operated by Solel have been in operation in the desert outside town for 17 years, providing more than 350 megawatts of power to the region's residents.
   Other more tangible infrastructure improvements are on the boards or in process as well for this community of 60,000 halfway between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, including major water pipeline improvements by the Mojave Water System. Already located at the junction of I-15 and I-40, the area will get an additional boost from the addition of a third lane on I-15 between Barstow and Victorville. And the area's housing costs — always an eyebrow-raising issue in California — run at about 30 percent of prices in L.A., San Diego or Orange County, though they're inching upward by the day.
   Job totals in Victorville are inching upward too, helped in part by nearly 1 million sq. ft. (92,900 sq. m.) leased in 2005 at SCLA, with rates jumping by 50 percent to between $0.35 and $0.50 per sq. ft. That total leased space is just a fraction of the 64 million sq. ft. (5.9 million sq. m.) entitled for commercial and industrial development at SCLA by developer Stirling. Beginning in 2006, Stirling will invest $300 million to build approximately 4 million sq. ft. (371,600 sq. m.) of facilities, says SCLA, including cross-dock, large-scale distribution and multi-tenant space.
   Two hangars built at a cost of $30 million already are home to a Pratt & Whitney operation as well as a maintenance, repair and overhaul facility operated by LibertyWest. LibertyWest already occupied multiple hangars at SCLA, as does Boeing. GE Aircraft Engine has ramped up its new engine testing facility. Aircraft body painter Leading Edge Aviation Services has ramped up its own new facility, and expects to paint as many as 90 aircraft in 2006. And presidential helicopter flight testing is being conducted at the airport by Team US101, comprising Lockheed-Martin-Bell and Textron-Augusta-Westland.
   Among the logistics projects in Victorville is a new 250,000-sq.-ft. (23,225-sq.-m.), 85-employee cold storage facility operated by ConAgra Foods.