The project will begin with an initial development period, which will include the design, construction, renovation, management, maintenance and operational responsibilities for the 2,435 housing units. According to Nestor, 800 new homes will be built, 822 will receive major renovations, 806 will include medium renovations and the rest will receive minor renovations.
Ron Nestor, the Balfour Beatty Communities senior vice president in charge of the Air Force portfolio, tells GlobeSt.com. "Our military men, women, children and families deserve quality housing, and I think that we can all agree that for years they weren't getting it." He continues that "with these contracts, the first five to seven years are of initial development, but these are 50-year contracts. Afterwards we also manage them."
Nestor says that "our renovations run the gamut. In many cases we demolish entire neighborhoods. Sometimes we do major, minor or medium levels of renovations. This doesn't just include houses, but infrastructure, playgrounds, community centers, pools and so on."
Housing for military families requires specific things, such as extra storage since households are often moving. "We're trying to build these houses to compete with market rate housing within the confines of a military base, and we are competing with the market rates. Military families don't have to live on the bases, they can live anywhere they want to or can afford.
Currently, Balfour Beatty works on 14 military housing privatization projects on 41 military bases in 19 states. Balfour Beatty is in negotiations for another two family housing projects on two more bases. The developer worked with the Department of the Army, Navy and Air Force on military family housing privatization projects across the country. Past projects have included the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC; the Carlisle Barracks in Carlisle, PA; the Picatinny Arsenal in Dover, NJ and many others.
Since 1996, the Military Housing Privatization Initiative allows the Department of Defense and Services to contract work to the private sector to improve the family housing situations on military bases. Often with this plan, family housing assets are combined with private investment in order to finish construction and renovation faster and cheaper than if the military would do the jobs itself.
Balfour Beatty was formerly known as GMH Military Housing and is based in Newtown Square, PA with about 1,000 employees.
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