REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. -- One of the most high profile commercial construction projects ongoing in relation to Redstone Arsenal resides next door to Gate 9, its most popular access point.
So, it's not surprising that the name for the Arsenal's enhanced use lease project is now officially Redstone Gateway.
In 2012, the development was relatively low key, with one building available for lease; road work and infrastructure continuing to be built at a quick pace; a new railhead established at its north end; and a one-story industrial building under construction.
But, with the November announcement that Boeing has leased the park's first building -- 1000 Redstone Gateway -- and will lease two more buildings now under construction, Redstone Gateway is once again making headlines.
Those headlines should continue throughout the next few years as Redstone Gateway grows into its own.
"The private developer has been working pretty aggressively this year continuing to get the infrastructure in place," said Garrison commander Col. John Hamilton.
"And, the great news is that they've leased the first multi-story office building that will be part of a three-building complex for Boeing."
Redstone Gateway is an enhanced use lease project launched in 2010 that partners the Arsenal with Corporate Office Properties Trust and Jim Wilson & Associates, the City of Huntsville and Madison County to develop 468 acres of Arsenal land. The office and mixed-use park, which is planned to include 4.6 million square feet of office, retail and hospitality space, is being built in three phases over the next 15 to 20 years. Of its 4.6 million square feet, 1.2 million square feet will be secured office space behind the Arsenal fence.
The infrastructure work of 2012 -- most visibly seen in the road network being built on the western side of Rideout Road -- will enable the construction of new buildings upon tenant demand and the construction of some retail facilities.
"There is a small retail piece to the EUL. I think this next year the developer will be able to look real hard at building out some of the retail facilities going into the EUL," Hamilton said. "They're going to have a combination of things like restaurants and service-related retail like a dry cleaners or a drug store. The focus of the retail complex will be the kinds of things needed to support the workforce in the area."
Redstone Gateway's retail area is adjacent to and behind the current Visitor Center on Rideout Road. When construction on the retail area begins, the Visitor Center facility will be removed and the Visitor Center will be relocated temporarily in retail space. In two or three years, the Visitor Center will be moved south on Rideout Road along with the Gate 9 relocation.
Since the Redstone Gateway groundbreaking in 2010, the developer has focused on a construction plan primarily supporting business and industrial development, and did not focuse exclusively on federal contractors.
"What the EUL provides is an opportunity -- through the partnership with the city and the private developer -- to open up another part of this community that is available for businesses to locate," Hamilton said.
"Our assumption is it will be tenants and companies doing business on the Arsenal, but not just for the defense industry. We will predominantly see companies that are partnered with federal agencies, but it isn't open to companies with federal contracts. The EUL is another opportunity for those businesses who gain value in being near the Arsenal or adjacent to the Arsenal. This is another complex of Class A space available to the community."
Even as Redstone Gateway develops into a diverse business complex, diversity in terms of the types of government agencies is also growing inside the Arsenal gates.
Government facilities that began construction in 2012 and will continue to take shape on Redstone Arsenal in 2013 will further enhance the installation's image as a location for joint military organizations. The Missile Defense Agency's Von Braun IV at the Von Braun Complex, the FBI's Terrorist Explosive Devices Analytical Center Laboratory on Fowler Road, and the Missile and Space Intelligence Center's Explosive Ordnance Exploitation Operations Complex near Gate 3 are either joint military or non-military specific facilities. In addition a private enterprise facility -- the Redstone Raytheon Missile Integration Facility -- was completed in 2012 and will go into full operation during the first quarter of 2013.
"These facilities are a reflection of the diversity of the team that's already here. We've got not only Army, but also joint Department of Defense agencies. We've got non-Department of Defense federal agencies here as well as private partners like Raytheon," Hamilton said.
The following is information on these four major construction projects:
*The Missile Defense Agency broke ground in September 2012 for the five-floor, 225,000-square-foot fourth and final wing of the Von Braun Complex. When it opens in 2014, Von Braun IV will provide offices for about 850 MDA employees who now work elsewhere on the Arsenal or in Huntsville. They will then be alongside thousands of MDA and Army Space and Missile Defense Command workers in the other three wings of the complex.
Turner Universal Construction of Huntsville is now building the estimated $58 million facility. It will take about 20 months to complete.
*In June 2012, the FBI, along with its law enforcement and military partners, participated in a groundbreaking for a new Terrorist Explosive Devices Analytical Center Laboratory.
The new building will provide dedicated forensic and technical exploitation workspace for TEDAC. Currently, TEDAC shares laboratory facilities with the FBI Laboratory at Quantico. The Huntsville laboratory will provide processing and examination capabilities in various forensic disciplines. The facility also will support technical exploitation of IEDs and related devices and will facilitate the exchange of personnel among TEDAC partner agencies, further strengthening TEDAC's interagency role and mission.
For the past nine years, TEDAC has proven to be one of the nation's most valuable tools in the war on terror. Since its creation, TEDAC has processed more than 80,000 submissions of IEDs and related forensic materials from Iraq, Afghanistan and other foreign countries. Scientists and engineers have made dozens of forensic matches and connections between seemingly unrelated IEDs.
Interagency partners participating in TEDAC include the FBI; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives; the Department of Defense Combined Explosives Exploitation Cells; Biometrics Task Force; Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization; National Ground Intelligence Center; the U.S. Army Intelligence and Information Warfare Directorate; the Defense Intelligence Agency; the U.S. Army Asymmetric Warfare Office; the National Security Agency; the Central Intelligence Agency; and the Counter Terrorism Command, London Metropolitan Police Service.
The FBI and its partners at Redstone Arsenal -- including the FBI's Hazardous Devices School and the ATF's National Center for Explosives Training and Research -- will advance TEDAC's mission by enhancing collaboration and further strengthening a government-wide approach to countering IEDs and other explosives threats.
*MSIC held a groundbreaking for its Explosive Ordnance Exploitation Operations Complex in November 2012 near Gate 3 in the 7500 area of Redstone. The $10.5 million, 25,000-square foot facility will replace facilities that were not originally designed for explosive ordnance operations.
The new complex will be used by the Defense Intelligence Agency, which oversees MSIC, to improve strategic warnings, determine where new threats are emerging, provide current intelligence and strengthen its relationship with the combatant commands to ensure it understands their requirements. It will include an operations support facility, EOE operations facility, shipping and transportation facility, remote operations facility, multi-service explosive storage magazine, explosive storage magazine, inert storage facility, open storage pad No. 1, and open storage pad No. 2.
*A November 2012 ribbon cutting officially opened the 70,000-square-foot Redstone Raytheon Missile Integration Facility near Gate 3. Raytheon's $75 million automated missile facility, built on a 200-acre site, will provide final assembly and testing for Raytheon's Standard Missile-3 and Standard Missile-6 interceptors, two ballistic missiles associated with the nation's worldwide missile defense strategy. The facility also provides greater capability for Raytheon to grow its missile production at Redstone.
SM-3 is part of the Missile Defense Agency's sea-based Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense, with deployment on Navy cruisers and destroyers, on Japanese destroyers to defend against short- to intermediate-range ballistic missile threats in the ascent and midcourse phases of flight, and at land-based sites in Europe. SM-6 is an extended range anti-air warfare missile fired from Navy ships against fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles and cruise missiles.
The first missile set to come off the production line will be the new SM-6, which will be complete in the first quarter of 2013 and then delivered to the Navy. Before they leave the facility, each missile is tested with the use of automated guided vehicles that move the missile down a concrete corridor into a test cell that uses a comprehensive, multi-layered system of protection from any potential explosion. Automatic controls guide the vehicles through the corridors to the test cells. It is the safest and has the highest explosive capacity of any of Raytheon's missile production facilities. The first SM-3 missile will come off the production line in the second quarter of 2013. The SM-3 is currently being produced at Raytheon's Camden, Ark., facility. But that production along with missile depot maintenance and recertification is being moved to the Arsenal facility.
The Arsenal continues to grow, even after BRAC 2005 is completed, as these construction projects prove the face of the Arsenal continues to transform.
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