The Army has pared 3,000 workers from the 22,000 expected to descend on Fort Belvoir over the next four years, according to an updated plan released Friday. The revision is the latest in a series of changes that could lighten the impact of Base Realignment and Closure on Fairfax County.
Only 6,200 workers from the Washington Headquarters Services are headed to the installation by 2011, according to the ‘record of decision,’ a document that cements the military’s plans for redeveloping Belvoir and allows construction to begin.
The agency was earlier expected to send 9,263 people to the base, the single largest cluster of jobs ordered to relocate there under 2005 BRAC mandates.
The reduction “helps make this a more manageable undertaking,” said Bill Womack, legislative director for Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va.
The record of decision leaves open where on Belvoir those 6,200 jobs would move. A likely new location for many if not all of those workers is a 70-acre cut of General Services Administration warehouses in Springfield, which would become part of Belvoir under legislation now before the U.S. Senate.
Proponents of using the Springfield site say its proximity to Metro and Virginia Railway Express stations would draw commuters off area roads and help avoid a projected traffic disaster.
Initial plans called for 18,000 military jobs, including those in the headquarters services, to relocate to the Engineer Proving Ground off Interstate 95, with the rest moving to the main post.
Army and Virginia officials, however, recently reached an accord that holds the number of workers on the proving ground to 8,500.
Fairfax County schools had been bracing for 3,200 new students under BRAC, and School Board Chairman Dan Storck said even with the most recent reduction, the influx will burden the system.
Still unclear is how the Army arrived at the worker reduction ‹ whether it represents a new decision by military planners or simply corrects an earlier miscalculation.
The record of decision said the changes “reflect new information that was not available” when earlier planning documents were drafted. Navy and Air Force organizations under the Washington Headquarters Services have found a separate home, according to the document.
Headquarters services and Army spokesmen could not be reached for comment on Friday.
