The U.S. Army is set to award a $500 million contract for a mammoth office complex at Aberdeen Proving Ground that will employ thousands of civil defense workers moving from a base in Fort Monmouth, N.J.
The complex, with 5,000 employees, may be the largest development in Harford County history and will represent the first major move to Maryland resulting from Base Realignment and Closure. The Army Corps of Engineers said it will name a contractor by next month and that construction of the 2.5 million-square-foot complex could begin next year.
“This is the most significant piece of the BRAC move,” said J. Thomas Sadowski, executive vice president of the Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore, a regional economic development and marketing organization.
“APG will become one of the world-recognized developers of information technology,” he added. “Maryland, its profile, not only nationally, but internationally, grows substantially.”
With New Jersey lawmakers trying to halt the Monmouth relocation to APG, this contract and the ensuing construction will provide tangible security for businesses expected to come with BRAC, said Jim Richardson, Harford County?s economic development director.
“Things are kind of at a standstill,” Richardson said. “Everybody in the government side and the business side is waiting for this groundbreaking.”
The complex will be built like a campus, with multiple buildings and plenty of greenery and parking space, Richardson said.
County Executive David Craig said the Army has kept him up-todate, so he has always been confident the moves stipulated by the 2005 BRAC legislation would happen according to schedule. New Jersey lawmakers? opposition to closing Monmouth did not faze him, Craig said.
“When all the hoopla was going on, we still knew it was a done deal,” he said. “I think it just reaffirms the decision that was made two years ago.”
Nicole Katsikides, BRAC coordinator for the Chesapeake Science and Security Corridor, said BRAC?s impact on APG and Fort Meade in Anne Arundel County would make Maryland crucial to the nation?s safety.
“We?re crediting this area, this part of Maryland, along with the other areas, the hub for homeland security in the nation,” she said.
