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Charleston Air Force Base gets facilities facelift
By Shelia Watson
Contributing Writer
The Charleston Air Force Base has embarked on an array of construction projects that will not only spruce up the base and housing areas but also pump money into the local economy.
The largest of the projects is the Repair Family Housing Project Phase IV, estimated at $16.9 million.
“This is a once-in-a-long-time type of project,” said William Dean, 437th Civil Engineer Squadron engineering flight chief. “We’ve had several phases accomplished over the last few years, things like roofing or painting projects for several hundred thousand dollars. But this is several times larger than what we’d normally do.”
Dean said much of the work is “end of life” renovations, with repairs and replacements coming when they’d be expected because of the buildings’ age.
“A lot of our buildings date back to the 1950s, so they’re due for this work,” he said.
The housing project includes major infrastructure improvements, such as new water and sewer lines, roads, grounds and retaining walls along the Hunley Park drainage basin.
Dean said some of the backyards in Hunley Park were beginning to erode from storm water runoff. Concrete-block retaining walls were installed to stabilize the areas and prevent further erosion.
“For the most part, we try to bite off chunks of the project over a period of time and do so much on the water line and sewer line each year,” he said.
Dean said the prime contractor is from Michigan, but many of the subcontractors and laborers are from the Charleston area.
“We bid the job on the open market with an RFP process, which is tied to price and performance,” he said. “But it’s typical for general contractors to use local help whenever possible.”
The housing project, which was awarded in February 2006, included the construction of 10 new homes in the officer quarters.
“These homes are going to set the standard for officer housing,” said Steve Campbell, a civil engineer with the squadron and the senior manager of the project. “These are really high-quality, state-of-the-art homes. Plus we put in a large playground and have done a lot with green space, putting the homes on larger lots and backing them up to the golf course.”
The housing project is about 85% complete. Campbell said the master plan calls for about 250 of the 716 housing units on the base to be demolished in 2015. The homes will not be rebuilt; rather, families will be directed to other housing available in the area.
“By that time, the useful life of those units will be about to expire, and it won’t be worth putting more construction dollars into them,” he said. “We don’t feel that there will be any impact on service personnel in the area. The housing market in the tri-county area already supports about 75 percent of our airmen. The Charleston housing market is a very strong market, and we expect it to remain that way for many years.”
Other construction projects include the demolition of dormitories, a steam plant and several temporary living facilities to improve base appearance. The cost of that work is about $1
million.
The base theater also underwent a major renovation. The two-year project included new HVAC, plumbing, electrical and acoustical systems and a revamp of the seating to comply with Americans with Disabilities Act regulations. The cost of the theater project was about $3.9 million, and Campbell said most of the contractors and subcontractors were local.
“We also worked on the exterior of the building to match the rest of the buildings on the base,” said Campbell. “The ADA compliance was a major reason for doing this. We added square footage so we could include eight wheelchair spaces and ramps. This is a big quality-of-life increase for the airmen.”
The theater, which reopened last month, received a design award from the Air Mobility Command center.
The next project on the planning board is a complete rebuild of the secondary runway.
Campbell said the base anticipates awarding that contract late next year.
“Like many of the other things around here that we’re renovating, the runway has reached the end of its lifespan,” he said. “It was constructed in the 1950s, and after so many takeoffs and landings, it just needs to be redone.”
The Air Force is working with the local community and the Charleston County Aviation Authority to determine the pros and cons of lengthening the size of the runway to that of the primary runway, which would allow planes to land on either, effectively increasing productive use of both runways.
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