By Ryan Huff
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
Wednesday, November 9, 2005
After years of salivating over development opportunities on the Concord Naval Weapons Station, city leaders will finally get their dream -- a chance to build a massive mixed-use project that could add more than 30,000 residents.
Closing down the inland portion of the base became final today as Congress approved President Bush's recommendation to shut down 22 major military bases and realign another 33 in a cost-cutting move that will save the Pentagon about $4 billion a year.
While the cash-strapped Concord will control zoning of the former base, the city does not intend to purchase any land. In the next few years, developers will be able to buy up to 5,170 acres of the inland portion of the base, worth at least several hundred million dollars.
The deep water port that the U.S. Army runs in Suisun Bay and 7,600 acres that surrounds it will remain as a key munitions transfer point for the Pacific region.
The station shut down is different from any other base closure experts can recall in two ways: Local officials lobbied for the shut down and essentially no jobs will be lost.
The inland part has been mothballed since 1999 and patrolled by a small security force, maintenance crew and fire department. It's highly likely those 64 jobs will be transferred to the port, according to the Navy.
Concord, a built-out city of around 125,000 people, has envisioned a mixed-use development on the inland side of the naval base for years.
The city's draft General Plan calls for up to half of this land to be dedicated as open space. And over the next three decades, the city would like to build up to 13,000 homes and add 13,000 jobs, further expanding Contra Costa County's largest city.
But don't expect the Navy to hand over the keys to Concord this week. Shutting down the base will be a multi-year process that will involve sales to developers and plenty of planning meetings where residents, business leaders, environmentalists and others will have say in the land's future.
But Concord has a few things going in its favor for a quick shut down: The Navy has been slowly cleaning up weapons pollution since 1983 and with the base a virtual ghost town for the past six years, there isn't much to dismantle and employees don't need to find new jobs.
"We don't have a timeline set up yet, but Concord should be fairly easy to transfer over," said Jill Votow, a spokeswoman for the Navy's base re-use program.
"On average, it takes three to six years to get the military off an operational base. Here we are hoping to be fairly rapid -- two years is probably as good a guess as any."
Ryan Huff covers Concord and Clayton. Reach him at 925-977-8471 or rhuff@cctimes.com .
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WHAT'S NEXT?
What should the future hold for the Concord Naval Weapons Station? Home development? Open space? Log on to our discussion board at www.contracostatimes.com .
WHAT'S NEXT?
• November/December 2005: City Council appointed as Local Redevelopment Authority
• Early 2006: Federal agencies have chance to request land; LRA hosts community workshops
• Late 2006: Council appoints Citizens' Advisory Committee; implements environmental cleanup and starts to form development/re-use plans
• By 2010: Concord would like to see development begin
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