A host of uncertainties surround the issue of land with federal warehouses on it in Springfield being used for offices for some of the thousands of workers set to relocate to Fort Belvoir.
Legislation now before the U.S. House of Representatives would transfer the land on Loisdale Road, just a stone’s throw from the Springfield Mall and Franconia-Springfield Metro station, from the General Services Administration to the Army by September 2008.
Local officials hope to use the land to reroute a large part of the 22,000 jobs headed to Belvoir under the Base Realignment and Closure Act, a move they say would spread out some of the workers and help stave off a traffic disaster on southern Fairfax County roads.
The transfer is included in the fiscal 2008 Defense Authorization Bill, which the House of Representative is expected to consider on Wednesday or Thursday.
The use of the warehouse site, however, carries serious design questions that remain unanswered, adding to a set of unresolved problems facing the Army ahead of the deadline for BRAC. Under the congressionally ordered relocation, all of Belvoir’s new facilities must be up and running by 2011.
It is undetermined how many jobs the Army will seek to redirect to the warehouse site. Also unknown is where the GSA would relocate the existing warehouses, and how much it would charge for the land.
A recent Army study on the use of the GSA land found the move would be expensive and could take longer than BRAC law would allow. Shifting as many as 9,000 of the jobs there would cost as much as $1.19 billion and take six and a half years, according to the study. Moving 3,000 employees would cost up to $415 million and take four and a half years.
“It’s going to delay the project, that’s for sure,” said Virginia Del. Dave Albo, R-Springfield, who nevertheless called the opening of the GSA site “a total stroke of genius.”
Though they’ve reportedly considered the use of the site, Belvoir planners until now have worked under the assumption that the new jobs would be located in only two areas: the main post at Fort Belvoir and the Engineer Proving Ground.
Under the Army’s preferred plan, 18,000 of the jobs would move to the proving ground off Interstate 95, and the rest to the main area.
