Processing Your Payment

Please do not leave this page until complete. This can take a few moments.

May 15, 2006

Brunswick International? | Despite its unparalleled airport infrastructure, reusing the Brunswick Naval Air Station for civilian aviation won't be easy

By Torrey Meeks
Change is nothing new for the Brunswick Naval Air Station. Built in 1943 on 1,487 acres of prime blueberry-growing land for training Royal Canadian Air Force pilots, the base was mothballed only three years later. It was reopened in 1951, serving as a jumping off point to Europe and the western United States for Navy planes such as Lockheed-Martin C-130s, the president's Air Force One, and F/A-18 Hornets. It also hosted a battalion of the Navy's legendary construction corps: the Seabees.

Through the 1990s and the beginning of this decade, it survived as the only Naval Air Station in New England, fending off several rounds of federal Base Realignment and Closure Commission recommendations. But the axe fell in 2005, when BNAS wound up on the most recent BRAC list of facilities slated for deactivation by 2011. And that change, says House Speaker and Brunswick Rep. John Richardson, will cost the town and region an estimated $115 million in lost economic activity. "It's extremely important we move forward to redevelop the Brunswick area and improve the tax base," says Richardson. "Most, if not all that [property] has been off rolls for at least 50 years."

Hoping to replace those lost dollars and boost the tax rolls, some local observers, including Richardson, have speculated on redevelopment ideas that take advantage of BNAS' most unique assets: its twin, 8,000-foot airstrips. And with the Navy's recent $9 million upgrade to the flight control tower and the construction of a $31.4 million hangar, there's a formidable aviation infrastructure in place with the potential for civilian uses. However, redevelopment isn't as cut-and-dry as hanging a sign in front of a former military airbase advertising passenger or commercial cargo flights, says Steve Levesque, executive director of the Brunswick Local Redevelopment Committee.

So in order to nail down the most profitable use for BNAS in a civilian incarnation, the Maine Department of Transportation in April commissioned Morristown, N.J.-based consulting firm Edwards and Kelcey Inc. to conduct an aviation-reuse feasibility study. Although most observers might quickly associate an airstrip with an airport, the potential transition is not always that direct, says Tracy Perez, DOT's project director for the study.

Multiple factors complicate the conversion of a military airstrip to civilian use, she says. But one of the biggest obstacles in any future aviation use for BNAS is the presence of 36 existing airports in Maine, including an established passenger airport less than 30 miles away in Portland. Military communities in the past have been overly optimistic about a former airfield's potential to provide passenger or cargo service, says Perez, but often the conversion isn't economically viable. "You can get federal money to build things," she says, "but then it becomes a question of who's going to maintain it."

But aviation isn't the only concept Brunswick residents are eyeing for redevelopment ideas. Catherine Glover, president of the Southern Midcoast Chamber of Commerce, says losing a major piece of the local economy while gaining a 3,200-acre location for development has created an atmosphere mixed with excitement and trepidation. Until the study results come back, though, Glover says she's neutral on the feasibility or desirability of an airport at the site. "If you ask us what we need right now, we need more space for a commercial park," says Glover. "Not industrial so to speak, but an office park with mixed use."

But the aviation feasibility study will give surrounding communities concrete options to use in their planning efforts, says Levesque ˆ— and any advanced planning is welcome, because much is out of the BLRA's hands until the federal government decides among requests from five federal agencies for portions of the property. "There's a whole host of different mechanisms in how property is transferred. It's not an easy and clean process," says Levesque. "The goal here is to be able to do our planning work and get things set up so we have business uses that are starting up as the Navy's leaving. We want to avoid a big lag."

Crowded airspace
While the Brunswick aviation reuse study isn't due until January, a good place to observe the pros and cons of a military airstrip conversion is Pease International Airport in New Hampshire, says Perez. Originally an Air Force base, Pease was handed to Portsmouth in 1991 on the condition that the airfield be maintained to provide passenger service.

Since then, the facility has made some significant economic gains, says Pease Development Authority Director Dave Mullen, but the situation is not all roses. On one hand, says Mullen, the development authority was able to increase economic activity from $100 million annually under military use to $500 million annually under civilian use. That was done by marketing the 3,000 acres as a business park, says Mullen.

On the other hand, the airport side of the development required $50 million of investment to bring it up to civilian regulations, and it's losing money, says Mullen. Last year alone, the airport was in the red by $1 million, most of that in operational costs. "Maintaining an airport is a huge expense, much like painting the Golden Gate Bridge; it's just a matter of where you want to paint at any one time," says Mullen. "The question is: How many airports is too many? We have Portland to our north, Manchester to our west and Logan to our south."

That proximity to competing airports likely will be the key factor preventing the Brunswick Naval Air Station from becoming a passenger airport, says Jeff Monroe, director of transportation for the city of Portland, who oversees the Portland Jetport. For example, the Portland Jetport draws from a population base of 700,000 and handles 1.4 million passengers a year, says Greg Hughes, marketing manager at the Jetport. Manchester handles around four million passengers a year from a base of 5.6 million. That leaves little business even for Pease or another new entrant up in Brunswick, says Monroe.

Those conditions don't discount the possibility of a general aviation component such as private jets or charter service capitalizing on the airfield in Brunswick, says Monroe, but competition with the established Jetport ˆ— which has been the beneficiary of hundreds of millions of dollars from the Federal Aviation Administration ˆ— isn't practical. Based on plans to double the Jetport's terminal size in the next 20 years, and a 50-year growth plan analyzing demographics and projected population centers, the Jetport has plenty of room to expand to meet growth on its 750 acres of land, says Monroe.

Monroe doesn't even see Brunswick becoming a viable cargo airport, as some local residents have suggested, for the same reason. The Jetport already handles 34 million pounds of cargo from all over the state each year. "You just can't have large airports in close geographic areas and make them work. Portsmouth is perfect example of that ˆ— it's never been able to take off as an airport," says Monroe. "The reality for shippers is that they are going to go where cargo is. Right now cargo is being generated in and around Portland."

But as a supporter of an aviation reuse, Richardson says the airstrip component of the redevelopment project is most likely to succeed by specializing. "What roughly 50% of the military airports that have been closed through the BRAC process have found success in is niche markets," says Richardson, "whether that's cargo, aircraft maintenance, building or manufacturing helicopters, or dual use with National Guard plus civilian use."

The list goes on, says Richardson, but where he sees potential for Brunswick is in maintenance and aircraft rehabilitation. With a hangar that can accommodate up to five 737s, there's strong potential to develop large-scale aircraft repair operations at Brunswick. The Penobscot Indian Nation already has expressed interest in using a portion of the base for aviation maintenance or aircraft parts operations, and Richardson says if enough aviation-related businesses migrate to the site it could develop into a strong and diverse industry cluster.

Grounded
Becoming the aviation capital of Maine, however, doesn't seem to be at the top of most Brunswick residents' minds. Residents and business owners in the area are still emerging from the shock of landing on the BRAC closure list, says Brunswick Town Councilor Forrest Lowe. And for all the discussion of potential airport operations at the site, not many businesses or residents have firm ideas about what they'd like to see done with the base once the Navy leaves in 2011. Instead, Lowe believes most people in the area are taking a wait-and-see attitude, hinging on the results of the aviation-reuse study. "Almost universally, all of the people I talked to are optimistic about the future," says Lowe. "I thought there would be more negativity."

However, although aviation is still considered a wild card, many have expressed the desire to see the land developed into a business park, regardless of airstrip use. "I think what Brunswick has is a very property-rich opportunity up there," says Monroe.

Any reuse, though, must factor in the infrastructure surrounding the base, including gas lines, roads, an electric grid and rail access within a couple of miles. Obviously, passenger or cargo air operations would change traffic patterns around the base, but no matter what happens with the facility, says Richardson, the transportation network likely will need upgrading. He cites needs such as improving access gates and on-base roads to handle more traffic. Those investments are necessary, he says, because a strong road system will make the location more attractive to businesses.

At this stage in the game, says Levesque, all options remain on the table ˆ— and that's the way it should be. No matter what the reuse study finds in regards to aviation options in Brunswick, the BLRA will be able to use that information to move forward, either culling the list of possible uses or developing recommendations into firm plans. And even though it's hard for some to imagine a future incarnation of the Brunswick Naval Air Station without some link to the aviation world, there likely will be no shortage of ideas for ways to take the facility in an entirely new direction. "There are a lot of very intuitive and creative people in this community expressing what they'd like to see from the base," says Glover. "It's a fantastic opportunity for this region to get a hold of flat, developable coastland in midcoast Maine."

Sign up for Enews

Most Recent

Most Recent

Comments

Order a PDF