The future of historic homes on Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, was among the topics discussed during the Community Executive Forum, an annual opportunity for Fort Leavenworth leaders and partners to discuss solutions for shared objectives, Sept. 20, 2024, in Marshall Lecture Hall at the Lewis and Clark Center on Fort Leavenworth.
Fort Leavenworth Garrison Commander Col. Duane Mosier said the Army divested itself of housing management in 2006, with that responsibility being taken on with a 50-year-lease by The Michaels Organization, the company that manages Fort Leavenworth Frontier Heritage Communities and several other military housing communities. Building more than 700 new homes at Fort Leavenworth and renovating others since then has been part of that agreement. Mosier said the Army and Michaels have been discussing the next chapter in the partnership since last November, with the discussion focusing on specific Fort Leavenworth concerns, as well as housing in general and quality of life for service members across the Department of Defense.
Chase Cornett, investment manager with Michaels, outlined the company’s Out-Year Development Plan, explaining upcoming renovation, demolition and building projects that are scheduled to happen in tiers over the next few years.
“Our plan is for the next five years utilizing this ODP, this Out-Year Development Plan, which is our budget to renovate and replenish some of the main historic pieces of Fort Leavenworth,” he said.
Cornett explained that what is being done at Fort Leavenworth is unique, that Michaels has pooled reinvestment funds from other military installations the company manages to use at Fort Leavenworth. He said Michaels representatives met with Hon. Rachel Jacobson, assistant secretary of the U.S. Army for Installations, Energy and Environment, last month.
“We explained to her the purpose, what our plans are, really just what the ODP entails, and she was thrilled with it,” he said. “We received approval for our budget a week later.”
First up to be funded is what Cornett referred to as Tier 1, which includes nearly 100 historic homes built before 1919 that will be receiving major renovations.
“The first action focuses on the pre-1919 homes. These are the main historic fabric of Fort Leavenworth, and the first part of that are 99 homes, broken into tiers of priorities … to receive major renovations,” Cornett said. “We want to make these homes that continue to be desirable for residents, something that they want to move into and they can be proud to maintain, live there, stand behind, full nine yards.”
Part of that project includes a pilot home at 613 Grant Avenue that will offer an open house for the public and video documentation of the historic home before, during and after the renovation.
Cornett said Tier 2 includes 30 units, also built before 1919, that will receive moderate renovations.
“It won’t be as all-encompassing as the first 99, but the idea here is to revisit these 30 homes once we finish those major renovations, and if there is excess funding, and it financially makes sense, we will move some of these homes into Tier 1 and then continue those major renovations to preserve as many of these homes as we can at Fort Leavenworth.”
Tier 3 includes homes that will receive minor maintenance, Cornett said, and Tier 4 includes the phasing out of Infantry Barracks, whose repurposing or other result has yet to be determined.
“The fourth tier includes 13 buildings including Infantry Barracks, built in the early 1900s, and they have served their purpose,” Cornett said. “We will work with SHPO (State Historic Preservation Office) in the coming five years as we roll out this plan all over the base and determine what the best path forward is. For now, those Tier 4 units have been earmarked for sunset.”
Mosier said the bottom line for the Infantry Barracks decision was that the buildings, built between 1900-1903, were constructed as barracks and then in 1920 were converted, without concern for modern issues such as moisture and air flow, into eight apartments per building using 18-inch plaster walls.
“So, without modern HVAC, moisture control and all of those other modern amenities in an individual unit (such as) controlled heat and air, created a cascading effect of problems over the last 100 years,” Mosier said, noting that it was important to focus protection and resources on the stand-alone historic buildings he described as having “absolute relevance to the future.”
“So the Army has agreed for Michaels to begin that conversation with SHPO and talk about what those 13 buildings should look like,” Mosier said. “In exchange, we have a large investment in the history of the installation into the historic housing, and we are going to be the standard for the entire DoD on how to handle a historic district and ultimately how renovation should look.”
Cornett said another part of the plan will address the more than 90 units in Upper Kansa, built in the 1960s and 70s and referred to as legacy homes, that will be demolished starting in summer 2025 and replaced with larger, four-bedroom or larger units.
“(The Upper Kansa units) just don’t really meet the needs of the modern military family. They are too small, the amenities they provide aren’t up to date,” he said. “Our plan is to take down the, probably, 92 units over in Upper Kansa and rebuild at a 2:1 ratio, so for every two 1,000-1,500-square-foot units that we have there currently, we will rebuild with a larger, minimum four-bedroom, roughly 2,200-square feet.”
Cornett noted that the larger homes, with space to work from home as was necessary during the pandemic, as well as other reasons such as having larger families, will elevate the Upper Kansa community.
Housing units outside of the historic district and legacy area will also see upgrades to heating and air conditioning systems, decks, porches, roads, curbs, sidewalks, driveways and windows, and some of those improvements are already underway.
“On (Sept. 16), the 6th Infantry Road, arguably one of the oldest roads on the installation, they began the process of milling over that, and redoing all of that concrete, all of that asphalt. They started on Monday and they finished Tuesday night,” Mosier said. “It really advances the quality of that neighborhood.”
Similar work being done on Hunt Road was expected to be completed this week, and sidewalks are being replaced in Oregon Village.
“If there is anything to take away, the big thing is a lot of these homes are 100, almost 200 years old, and we want to do the best we can to preserve that historic integrity, and also make it a house that is for the service men and women who stay here on base, and in doing that, we’d like to see these homes last another 100 years,” Cornett said.
Community Executive Forum break-out sessions included Emergency Services, Community Engagement, CEO Roundtable and the Transition Assistance Program.
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