Clark Realty won a U.S. Air Force contract this week to give Andrews Air Force Base’s fading residential communities a $120 million face-lift.
The Bethesda real estate group will lease the land from the Air Force for 50 years and will demolish 781 existing Andrews housing units, build 200 new homes and renovate215 others over a six-year initial development period.
Clark Realty will collect the servicemembers’ housing allowance as rent payment to finance the project’s maintenance and construction.
The new houses will have more spacious floor plans, upgraded amenities and additional storage space, and the development plan includes neighborhood improvements such as picnic areas, playgrounds and community centers, the company said.
The company also won $180 million to revitalize the MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla.
“Our design team visited desirable neighborhoods throughout the D.C. and Tampa regions, such as the Mount Vernon area in Alexandria … to better understand and incorporate architectural and landscape features that would create vibrant places that our residents would enjoy,” said Clark Realty development executive Sean Callahan.
The contract is part of the Air Force Military Housing Privatization Initiative, in which the military partners with private developers to quicken the revitalization of military housing.
More than 38 percent of Air Force family housing needs major improvement or replacement, according to the Air Force, and the military has scheduled the $4 billion overhaul of 38 housing projects, or 32,000 housing units, throughout the U.S.
While Andrews and MacDill will be Clark’s first Air Force housing venture, the group is developing housing for other military branches at 10 locations in the U.S., including the Army’s Fort Belvoir.
Silver Spring-based Torti Gallas and Partners has served as the architect and land planner for all of Clark Realty’s military housing projects and will continue in that role for the Andrews Air Force Base project, Clark Realty said.
