BNAS watch
Just days after squadrons began flying out of Brunswick Naval Air Station for the last time, a developer’s plan for Navy housing units is causing concern. Here’s a round-up of that and other developments at BNAS.
Balfour Beatty, which earlier this year purchased the BNAS housing, told the town it will begin selling or renting nearly 600 units in Brunswick as they become available, according to The Times Record. The units will be rented first to Navy personnel, reservists, retired military and other federal employees, and then to the general public. Steve Levesque, executive director of the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority, which is charged with redeveloping the base after it closes in 2011, told the paper that the “fairly significant surge” of rental properties into the market, in addition to 1,200 other rental units not owned by Balfour Beatty, could flood the local real estate market.
Further complicating matters is the recent resignation of Brunswick’s executive director of economic and community development, Mathew Eddy. He resigned to serve as executive director of the Eaton Peabody Consulting Group in Augusta, the paper reported.
The town continues to grapple with the loss of population and business predicted to result from the air station’s closure in 2011. The first Navy personnel left the base late last month, and all personnel are scheduled to leave the base by the end of 2009. Easing the transition was the recent announcement of two Defense Department grants totaling more than $1.1 million for redevelopment studies at the base, according to the paper.
And a funding snafu has arisen for a planned reservist training center on 75 acres in the air station. The facility, intended to train reservists in the Marine Corps and National Guard, needs to align its joint funding between the two branches, reported the paper. Both Maine senators are urging the secretary of the Navy to bump back funding for the Marine’s portion of the project to align it with the National Guard’s.
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