MacDill building boom bright spot in local economy

Inside a four-story, 260,000 square-foot structure built to withstand hurricane winds or explosive blasts, construction crews are putting the finishing touches on the region's most secure, technologically advanced building.

On the fourth floor, a worker unscrews panels leading to a sub-floor network of thousands of miles of securely encased cables. A few yards away, a man stands on a ladder, building out a frame for a 22-foot-long video monitor in a conference room with theater seating.

This is no ordinary construction zone. It's the new headquarters of U.S. Central Command, where the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will be run.

The building will cost nearly $80 million by the time it is complete. It is part of a flurry of construction taking place at MacDill Air Force Base that base officials say has brought about 1,000 jobs into the region.

Seven military construction projects are under way, with contracts valued at more than $130 million, including the Central Command headquarters. Beyond the construction, support requirements like the multi-million dollar contracts to install and maintain the high-tech equipment add to the area's financial windfall.

At a time when the construction business outside MacDill's secure gates is languishing, local political leaders are ecstatic about the economic benefits to Tampa and Hillsborough County.

The construction "is providing jobs and economic boost to the Tampa Bay area," said U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Tampa.

MacDill is "one of Tampa's most valuable economic engines," said Mayor Bob Buckhorn. "Even in times of recession, it has been the one ray of hope in terms of construction dollars."

But the ray might not shine forever.

This current construction boom is scheduled to end in October of 2012, when U.S. Special Operations Command's new $10.5 million "secure compartmented information facility" is scheduled to be completed.

There are other projects in the planning stages.

The Senate just included $15.2 million for a new garage for Special Operations Command in the 2012 Military/VA appropriations bill. Further down the line, Socom is hoping to bring the Joint Special Operations University campus inside the base in a new, $33 million facility.

Robert Hughes, civil engineer for the 6th Air Mobility Wing, said base officials are also hoping to see much-need improvements the traffic-chocked roads of the 60-year-old base.

Further over the horizon, the next major building project at MacDill is likely to be the construction of new hangars large enough to accommodate the KC-46A aerial refueling tankers, scheduled to arrive here in 2017. The new tankers are larger than the KC-135 Stratotankers they will replace and won't fit in the old hangars, according to Tom Weber, assistant area engineer for the Army Corps of Engineers, which is overseeing military construction at the base.

But at a time when the congress and the White House are bitterly divided over the debt ceiling, the economy is in a shambles and new Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has been charged with continuing the cost-cutting measures of his predecessor, none of these planned projects is guaranteed.

Castor and U.S. Rep. Bill Young, R-Indian Shores and the chairman of the influential House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, say they will continue to work to convince colleagues of the importance of MacDill to national security.

"Over the last decade, we have invested $620 million to ensure that our war fighters have the best facilities in which to command our troops safely, securely and in real-time," Young said. "Our investment in MacDill Air Force Base goes back well before 9/11 and has only intensified as we meet the needs of our nation's war fighters in this global war on terrorism."

Buckhorn said Castor and Young have a strong sales pitch.

"Given the two commands down there and the nature of the wars they fight," he said, "the likelihood is good for additional military construction dollars flowing to Centcom and Socom."