Hill Air Force Base's $1.4 billion research park under way

HILL AIR FORCE BASE — The $1.4 billion Falcon Hill research park moved one step closer to reality Wednesday with the groundbreaking for a building that will house engineering smarts for the nation's Intercontinental Ballistic Missile program.

The research park is innovative in the military environment, bringing private contractors and aerospace industries on base in a scenario that also puts military land back on the tax rolls.

ICBM maintenance is the job of the Air Force's 526th Systems Group, located on base. Support from defense contractor Northrop Grumman is just a few miles from the base, but 650 of those employees will move into a five-story, 125,000-square-foot building that will rise from where ground was broken.

"From our perspective it works a lot better when we're on base, co-located with our customers. A year from now, I looking forward to seeing that happen," said Tony Spehar, vice president of missile systems for Northrop Grumman.

The move will put Northrop Grumman's analysts and engineers within footsteps of the 526th's maintenance facilities. In shopping-mall terms, Northrop Grumman will become the "anchor tenant" for what will eventually be an 8 million-square-foot research park.

Falcon Hill National Aerospace Research Park, which was first announced two years ago, makes use of a new military program called enhanced-use lease and is the largest project of its type planned by the Air Force. "This is completely novel what we're doing here," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, one of a number of elected officials on hand for the groundbreaking. Hatch has been fostering the enhanced-lease concept since federally mandated base closures in 1995 strengthened Hill's viability and brought new military jobs to Hill.

"The laws that permit this type of development are relatively new," Hatch said, explaining why the first construction project is just now being announced. Hatch said lead developer Jim Woodbury has been busy during that time working through a new federal-state-private bureaucracy.

"I think they were afraid the almighty federal government would renege on it — and so was I," Hatch said.

The lease program, in Falcon Hill's case, allows the Air Force to lease a 3.5-mile strip of almost 600 acres along Hill's west side to a private developer, Sunset Ridge Development Partners, which will build office and mixed-use buildings along with a hotel and other retail space. In exchange, the developer will build 1.6 million square feet of office and work space the Air Force can use to replace many 1940s-era buildings on base.