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Up until last year, I lived in Ventura County CA within 15 miles of Camarillo Airport (formerly Oxnard AFB) which is has a Commemorative Air Force hanger and museum located there. They have a variety of WWII air planes some of which often fly over the county from time to time. The county leases many of the buildings there for things like the fire department HQ, a law enforcement academy, and the dog pound . Military contractors use the facility flying old jets (partially painted orange) in support of contracts with the Pacific Missile Range located at the nearby former Point Mugu Naval Air Station. Point Mugu, China Lake Naval Weapons Station (out in the desert), and the Seabee base at Port Hueneme, CA have been combined administratively into Naval Base Ventura County. There are many tenant commands supported there.
We recently moved from Naval Station Great Lakes, and I worked from time to time at a Navy-run early childhood center at Former Naval Air Station Glenview in Illinois (south of Great Lakes).
The former NAS, which was closed in 1995, has been successfully repurposed into a mixed-use community called The Glen. The old control tower has been incorporated into the architecture and is part of a retail, residential, and business park complex. When the NAS closed, the land was deeded back to the village of Glenview, who handled the reuse and redevelopment plan. In addition to homes, it has an office park and shopping centers, as well as city parks, schools, golf courses, a lake, a commuter train station connecting it to the rest of the Chicagoland area, and a pretty nice children's museum. It's fairly high-end suburban.
I live near the former Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, about 50 miles south of Los Angeles. That 5000 acre base closed in the late 1990s, and stood empty for over a decade. The land occupied by that former base was annexed by the city of Irvine around 2001. In 2005, during the great real estate boom, the mega developer Lennar paid the federal govt over 600 million for land rights to build nearly 10,000 homes on a portion of the former base. Lennar "gave"" the city of Irvine 1300 acres to build the Great Park of Orange County. To date, 200 acres of parkland are open to the public.
Home construction did not start until 2012-2013, after the great real estate crash started to recover. Also, it took many years for contaminated soil on the former MCAS to be removed, caused by decades of spilled and leaking aviation fuel that seeped into the ground all around the runways and hangers of the vast base. There is still contamination in the groundwater 100 feet below much of the base, but it is no longer on the Superfund list.
The runways are still there, but most of the old MCAS buildings are gone. City of Irvine just started construction on a new high school. I see about a thousand or so homes under construction, most of those homes with a sales price well above $700,000. These are not mansions, these are typical Orange County suburban developments with stucco wall boxes and tile roofs, crammed in tight to get the most homes per acre as possible.
There is also a lot of big time commercial and residential real estate development going on at former MCAS Tustin, which is just north of Irvine. The giant blimp hangers are still there - those were used during WW2 for parking blimps that patrolled the coastline of Southern California.
Both of these former MCAS sit in the middle of Orange County, population almost 3.5 million. Billions will be spent on development at these sites in the next decade, because they represent the last large remaining empty flat spaces of land in the county, which is attached to the second largest Metro in the US.
Wow, recycled. I was at El Toro from 82-88. We royally ticked off the City of Irvine. I wasn't surprised the base got closed. Also, we used to purge acft drop tanks by setting them over a storm drain and sticking a water hose in the top for a few hours. That was procedure. yikes
We've had Kelly Field close here and Brooks, both Air Force installations. Brooks still has a small portion open that deals with space science. Kelly is now a repair depot for Boeing and others. They still refuel military jets crossing this part of the world and still provide support for 2 air wings. Kelly is huge, several square miles. You wouldn't want to have to walk the fences in a day. Brooks is now a mostly shopping center with stores of all kinds there. It's also is a pretty good size place with 1200 acres still available. WE have a Texas A&M campus there, medical research, tons of restaurants, Walmart, grocery stores, you name it, it's there. Kelly is just an airplane repair depot with a couple of import clearing houses. At one time, you were either employed at Kelly or a family member was. It was a major local employer. Now, not so much. They still service the C-5s and other large aircraft. There's usually 15-20 C-5s waiting to be worked on. Brooks brought a lot of improvements to the south side of San Antonio. That wasn't the rich side of town but it's been under construction since BRAC closed the doors on the Gov't side and opened the flood gates to development. Kelly is still a bad thorn in the citys side. Seems there's a ton of environmental damage that was unknown until the private sector came in for development. They've even had to shut down some of the city water wells due to pollution from Kelly. That area is not seeing any development like Brooks. Brooks is growing like crazy.
There is an old SAC base about 55 miles northwest of where I work. Clinton-Sherman is still used as an auxiliary training field for the C-17 and KC-135 students at Altus AFB; in the 50s and 60s it was used for B-52s until its closure in 1969. It is still used for occasional exercises and, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol has a presence at the old alert facility (“ChristmasTree”) but it’s very desolate. The old weapons storage bunkers are even visible (see link). I flew over a couple times in the F-16 and have seen it from airliners as well, and drove by once a few years back, a wide expanse of concrete and a 13,000’ runway in the middle of nowhere. It never really was successfully repurposed.
The repurposing of air bases is hit-or-miss... the most successful have been near larger urban areas. In the 80s I flew out of Austin’s Mueller Municipal Airport, a tiny, urban-landlocked airport with a runway slightly longer than 7000 feet. Small, and unable to grow in a rapidly growing city. When Bergstrom AFB closed the city moved the airport to the closed base and its parallel 12,000’ runways. About ten years ago I flew into the new AUS and it’s much better than the old airport which is almost completely gone. Williams AFB near Phoenix is another success… I was based there as an ROTC cadet, got all of my physicals there, etc. Now it’s a reliever for Phoenix, and has a significant presence from Arizona State University. Finally, Amarillo AFB is now Amarillo International Airport
Not every base succeeds. The remote former SAC bases up on the northern tier are so far from any appreciable population center (and subject to such awful winters) that no major businesses are interested in them and are willing to repurpose them.
Nevada is heavily military. I live within spitting distance of Top Gun/ Strike. There is also another former Navy facility coupled here to it. A sπithole of a place, long bereft of honor. Yet, it supports a population still, under the Army. It should be BRAC'd. However, if it were, that would send the people there into our midst, which we don't want.
Catch 22. Contain the disease, or disperse it and let it die altogether, only after infecting others not deserving.
Well. Not an airbase but we live close to the former Naval Training Center. Former boot camp for navy recruits for generations. Closed in the 90's. Redeveloped into 700-800 k condos, restaurants and shops. Many of the old buildings were saved and repurposed.
Anyone here live near a former Air Force Base or Naval Air Station? How many of them have been successfully repurposed?
Do we really have to live near them?
In the 70's Laredo Air Force Base was closed and turned over to the City of Laredo, Texas where it became Laredo International Airport which is operational... I can drive to it in one day...
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