PDA

View Full Version : Marine Corps Base Upgrades Planned for 2011



Rocky C
01-20-11, 02:55 PM
In the past two years, Marine Corps installations have become veritable construction zones, with new barracks, chow halls, warehouses, offices and ranges opening at bases that are busy training and deploying Marines for war tours and other overseas duty.

That’s all thanks to beefed-up military construction budgets and the federal stimulus bill, along with specific campaigns to ease shortages of racks and barracks for enlisted Marines brought on by the Corps’ quick buildup to 202,000 active-duty Marines.

In just the past three years, several billion dollars worth of construction has been planned, completed or set in motion across the service. These include dozens of infrastructure projects to repair, upgrade or modernize existing utilities and facilities.

And there’s money, too, to improve things that make life a little easier for Marines and their families, like nicer barracks, modern gyms and more child-care facilities.

On Jan. 6, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced plans to cut spending and draw down the size of the force by as many as 20,000 Marines beginning in four years. It’s not immediately clear how these measures could affect construction already budgeted.
Here’s a look at some major projects in the works or about to start:

West Coast

• Camp Pendleton, Calif. As one of the Marine Corps’ largest and busiest training bases, Camp Pendleton is seeing ground-breaking and grand-opening ceremonies just about every month. Nearly all of the base’s smaller camps are getting new or renovated barracks, chow halls, warehouses.
The biggest quality-of-life project kicked off last year — a new naval hospital (http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2009/12/navy_hospital_121609w/) — and will begin to take form soon as construction crews work on utilities and begin to build the $394 million complex on vacant land about a mile from the main gate.
This year will see three new barracks projects worth $145 million at the base, a $59 million project that will build a pair of dining facilities, including an enlisted mess hall at Edson Range, home to recruit field and marksmanship training.
Work also is underway on a $124.3 million project to build a new barracks as well as provide training facilities and storage space for 1st Reconnaissance Battalion and 1st Air-Naval Gunfire Liaison Company.
Construction is expected to wrap up this summer on the Wounded Warrior Hope and Care Center and Wounded Warrior Battalion-West headquarters at the base, a $29 million project.

• Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, Calif. Marines with four Reserve units will get to work in new modern digs at the San Diego station next year with the completion of a $7 million project to renovate facilities and construct a new administrative building.

• Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego. Work is expected to be done this summer on a $56 million project to build two barracks that will house 1,729 Marine recruits. The facility will include a sports medicine and reconditioning therapy clinic, along with company spaces. An $18 million project to build a staff noncommissioned officers barracks is slated to begin this year, with completion by 2013.

• Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center, Bridgeport, Calif. A $6.8 million, 13,000-square-foot commissary and a 3,600-square-foot exchange at the Coleville family housing area, north of the training base in California’s remote Eastern Sierras, will be built this year once contracts are issued.

• Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, Twentynine Palms, Calif. A new barracks will open this year as construction begins on another project to build two additional barracks and a parking garage, which should be done by 2013.

• Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Ariz. The air station will experience more dust and hardhats starting this year as design and construction begins on $140 million in projects that will provide work spaces, a training-simulator facility and hangars to house a pair of F-35 Joint Strike Fighter squadrons by 2013.

Hawaii

• Marine Corps Base Hawaii. A $90.5 million contract award is expected this year to design and build a 107-room barracks and parking garage. That contract also will cover the renovation of two older barracks — including the addition of central air conditioning — at Kaneohe Bay. Work also continues on a $39.7 million, five-story barracks at the base that will provide 150 rooms for about 300 junior enlisted Marines.
A $30 million physical fitness center will be built at Camp H.M. Smith. The modern facility will replace a gym built during World War II.

East Coast

• Camp Lejeune, N.C. This summer, look for work crews to complete construction of a new visitor’s center and gatehouses, along with extra traffic lanes, at the Piney Green Gate off N.C. Highway 24, easing the rush-hour ride for the 28,000 vehicles that enter the base each day. Several other projects already underway — including six barracks, a dining facility, a child development center at Courthouse Bay, a $19.2 million gym and indoor pool, and a major expansion and renovation of the naval hospital — will continue into 2012. Plus, additional barracks and facilities might break ground later this year.

In another few months, base residents will see the opening of new child development centers in the Tarawa Terrace and Midway Park neighborhoods, a $13.4 million project designed with energy efficiency in mind. Each of the 30,000-square-foot facilities will accommodate about 300 kids.

Construction on a new elementary school is expected to finish this summer while work on 190 family homes in the Brewster Boulevard area continues, with completion expected in mid-2012.

This year will see the completion of a $14.5 million Wounded Warrior barracks and the $12.8 million Hope and Care Complex and headquarters for Wounded Warrior Battalion-East. The main Marine Corps Exchange gets a 40,000-square-foot addition and renovation, adding more retail space. That project should be finished by next winter.

Also, an extensive project continues at Wallace Creek, where work on a new regimental complex is expected to be done by September. The expansion will include more than 500,000 square feet of space in 31 buildings, including barracks and dining facilities for 3,000 Marines. Offices, warehouses, an armory and training facilities are also planned.

“Over the next three fiscal years, we’ll be executing about $3.5 billion worth of milcon on this base,” said Col. Dan Lecce, who took over as base commander in June, inheriting the construction boom. “It’s all kind of going up right now,” he said.

The base population is close to 50,000 Marines, plus families and employees, which boosts the population on any given day to more than 80,000.
“If you throw in the retirees who come to the hospital, PX and commissary, the population goes up to more than 100,000. It’s huge and we have to manage that; it’s a challenge,” Lecce said.

• Marine Corps Air Station New River, N.C. The air station, which last year saw the opening of new barracks, a dining facility and a post office, will see the start of construction on a $20 million physical fitness center.

• Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, N.C. A $24 million barracks at the air station should be completed and open by spring, providing 180 rooms for about 348 enlisted Marines. A modern two-story headquarters building for 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing is due to open this year also.

• Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, S.C. Construction is scheduled to begin later this year on a $15 million physical fitness center at the South Carolina fighter-jet base. The facility will replace a smaller, 1950s-era gym that’s too small to support Marines there.

• Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, S.C. The training base is seeing new open-bay barracks for recruits, as well as some improvements in living spaces as crews complete work on a $6 million renovation of a barracks with 1st Recruit Training Battalion.

• Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany, Ga. A $13 million Bachelor Enlisted Quarters for junior Marines will replace an old barracks. Like all new barracks construction, the new building features energy-saving measures like low-flow toilets and a solar hot water system.

• Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va. A $32 million project will provide barracks space for Marines at The Basic School. Another will design and build a $55.8 million multi-story quarters for new second lieutenants, replacing 50-year-old O’Bannon Hall. It also will provide office space and other facilities for students and staff at the school.
Quantico also plans to see construction begin by summer on a new 150-room barracks for 300 enlisted Marines at Weapons Training Battalion. By 2012, the $37.8 million project will replace an existing BEQ that’s suffered cracks and foundation problems.

elliscraig12
01-20-11, 03:46 PM
Wow, I wish they had done this when I was in. When I was on the Augmentation program to OCS in 86, my barracks was a converted horse stable built in 1927. It's good to see our people being treated better. In 91 I was in PI at the lower MEF. The last two weeks or so they sent us over to the Navy's temp housing. What a difference. It was like staying at a really nice hotel. Never saw anything in the Marine Corps like it. There were times while I was in people would be without heat, or not get any chow because they ran out of food.

emax
01-21-11, 07:26 AM
Sounds like Bridgeport has changed quite a bit from the Quonset Huts of the late 70's.:scared:

AlohaMarine
01-22-11, 01:54 AM
MCBH has been a construction zone for like 2 straight years now. They had to rip up every single road for the installation of new cables and piping. That took about a year (and 5 years off my suspension with all those steel plates). They installed a gas station, a huge addition to the Kaneohe Bay Lodge, now they're building an enormous set of barracks right in the middle of the base behind the E Club, as well as doing construction by the O Course and Gas Chamber. Scuttlebutt is though that the new barracks are going to the Navy, and the Corps is getting the Navy's old ones.

If any of you are familiar with KBay, you know that this means like 60% of the base is being worked on. Its not that big!

TunTvrnWarrior
01-22-11, 07:47 AM
MCBH has been a construction zone for like 2 straight years now. They had to rip up every single road for the installation of new cables and piping. That took about a year (and 5 years off my suspension with all those steel plates). They installed a gas station, a huge addition to the Kaneohe Bay Lodge, now they're building an enormous set of barracks right in the middle of the base behind the E Club, as well as doing construction by the O Course and Gas Chamber. Scuttlebutt is though that the new barracks are going to the Navy, and the Corps is getting the Navy's old ones.

If any of you are familiar with KBay, you know that this means like 60% of the base is being worked on. Its not that big!

Where did they move the "O Course"? I have google earthed the base. It was at one time accross the street to the rear of the barracks and Anderson Chow hall. I remember the Gas Chamber being at the beach near the curve on the way up to the range.

AlohaMarine
01-22-11, 06:37 PM
how long as it been since you've been there? Gas chamber and O course have been in an area just behind the Nuupia Ponds by the motor pool on the way to the back gate for a while.

TunTvrnWarrior
01-22-11, 06:44 PM
how long as it been since you've been there? Gas chamber and O course have been in an area just behind the Nuupia Ponds by the motor pool on the way to the back gate for a while.

I was there from 1985 to 1988

hbharrison
01-22-11, 10:47 PM
Well they needed it for a long time.