A business and lease plan for a proposed 200-acre laboratory and office complex to accommodate contractor moves from the U.S. Army?s soon-to-be-closed Fort Monmouth, N.J., installation to Aberdeen Proving Ground has been approved by the Department of the Army with only lease-signing remaining to make it official.
“We hope that by the end of the month we have a lease in place,” said Thomas Olmstead, national director of government programs for The Opus Group, a Minneapolis-based development company with eastern regional headquarters in Rockville. “We think that there is a lot of demand from contractors coming in from Fort Monmouth as part of the overall [Base Realignment and Closure] activity ? and we hope that we can [accommodate] a majority, if not all, of them.”
Fort Monmouth was one of 15 military installations marked for closing last September by the BRAC commission. Many of the base?s activities will be transferred to Aberdeen Proving Ground over the next five years ? and a good share of its 2,500-contractor support force is expected to follow.
“There?s like 80 different contractors in Monmouth that are going to be moving to Aberdeen,” Olmstead said.
The $1.6 billion-in-revenue Opus Group?s Government and Technology Enterprise project, billed as a “high technology research campus,” could deliver 2 million square feet in laboratory, office, conference room and hotel space. It is expected to break ground by June 2007.
Effected under a relatively new real estate arrangement, called an “enhanced use lease,” which affords compensated public-private use of underutilized government lands, the project will take initial shape in the form of site development and a speculative office building, but will await demonstrated tenant interest before proceeding.
The Opus Group will pay the Army a monthly rent, and in turn receive rent from contractor tenants.
“As soon as we get control of the land through an assigned [50-year] lease, we?ll start calling each and every one of them to find out if they have a need in Harford County,” Olmstead said.
Olmstead stated that his company would do some of the design and the general contracting, as well as the overall property and asset management, but that it will tap the local market for subcontractor support for the estimated eight to ten year build-out.
