|
A 719,000-square-foot building at Quantico will house investigative arms of the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force. |
The thousands of military jobs coming to the Fredericksburg area could create "a change of the business dynamic," Joe Grzeika told an audience of area business leaders Thursday night.
Grzeika, who is chairman of both the King George County Board of Supervisors and the locally run Military Affairs Council, made his comments as part of a forum on the Base Realignment and Closure jobs coming to the area in the next few years.
Quantico Marine Corps Base is expected to add 2,700 jobs by September 2011 as part of the most-recent BRAC decisions. That represents a 20 percent bump in Quantico's work force, and more jobs could be coming.
The jobs are still two years away from arriving, but Grzeika and other panelists at the Thursday event noted that changes are already under way that will impact the area's economic development prospects.
The shell of a 719,000-square-foot building at Quantico that will house investigative arms of the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force, as well as other federal agencies, is already in place. The building will be finished in about 13 months, and the agencies will then move in over the next eight months.
The anticipation of those jobs has led to the development of two 140,000-square-foot Class A office buildings at the Quantico Corporate Center in North Stafford, which the Silver Cos. is developing. A third building is in the works. Numerous defense contractors have signed leases.
That area along U.S. 1 in North Stafford is "vibrant and growing" despite the recession, Grzeika said, and more growth is to come.
John Rosewarne, the BRAC coordinator for the Quantico base, said he has never seen the level of construction now occurring at Quantico. He noted that other federal defense agencies have expressed interest in the base.
"I see Quantico continuing to grow and continuing to expand," Rosewarne said.
The 2,700 new positions are expected to create "offshoot" jobs in private contracting as well as retail, child care and other services. The number is hard to pin down, but Quantico/Belvoir Regional Business Alliance Executive Director Miles Friedman pegged it at two or three times the 2,700.
Many of the people who will fill those 2,700 jobs already live in Northern Virginia and will simply reverse their commute. But Friedman and Rosewarne estimated that perhaps 600 to 700 will move to the area.
That could have a big effect on both the area's housing market and traffic woes (the latter of which was touched on only briefly Thursday). There were about 800 homes on the market in Stafford at the end of September. The pending jobs could explain the recent surge in residential building permits in the county.
Though Thursday's forum at the downtown Fredericksburg Courtyard by Marriott focused on Quantico, Grzeika noted that the Dahlgren Navy base also is gaining momentum. The base will benefit from the Obama administration's decision to shift from a land-based to a sea-based missile defense system.
The University of Mary Washington also plans to open a graduate school near the Dahlgren base in fall 2011 for technology-focused education. UMW will work with other Virginia universities and community colleges. Grzeika thinks a highly competitive technology center could emerge there.
"I believe we're in a great position," Grzeika said. "I see nothing but positives."
Thursday's event, which also addressed how small businesses can get government contracts and how the work force will be trained, was part of the Rappahannock Area Business Leadership Forum. The series is presented by the Hirschler Fleischer law firm.
Bill Freehling: 540/374-5405
Email: bfreehling@freelancestar.com
