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Home > Articles By Month > October 2007

Military Base Reuse: How Moffett Field became NASA Research Park

NASA Research Park’s success demonstrates the advantages of locating at a converted military base, as well as the challenges inherent in such sites.

By David L. R. Shiver, Principal, Bay Area Economics

Among the 97 major military bases closed by the Department of Defense over the past 15 years, the 1,200-acre former Naval air station Moffett Field, located in California’s Silicon Valley, stands out as a unique example of an effective military base reutilization.

Moffett Field was established by the U.S. Navy in 1933 to house the USS Macon, a 785-foot long dirigible that provided long-range reconnaissance in support of the Pacific Fleet. It served for only eight missions before it crashed off the California coast in 1935. During World War II, the air station served as a center for lighter-than-air aircraft and later for Naval jet pilot training up until its closure in 1994.

In a federal-to-federal agency transfer, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Ames Research Center assumed management of the adjacent Moffett Airfield facility, and operated Moffett as a closed federal enclave with other federal tenants for several years.

In 1999, however, NASA Ames initiated a planning process to open approximately 260 acres of Moffett Field for redevelopment by private entities that share NASA’s technological and educational focus. In late 2002, after three years of environmental studies and public meetings, NASA adopted the NASA Ames Development

Plan that established NASA Research Park.

The NASA Research Park vision is for a world-class center for research and learning shared by government, academia, industry, and nonprofit organizations in partnership with NASA.

A key premise of the NASA Research Park is the gathering of diverse talent into the same physical location, with the goal of creating a physical environment that fosters formal and informal interactions. It is hoped that these interactions will that lead to the development of novel technologies and applications while accelerating the pace of existing research. Such an environment would potentially enable NASA and its partners to achieve more than any party could independently, and, as a by-product, contribute to the strength of American R&D.

The plan permits up to 5.1 million square feet of office and R&D space, educational facilities, and residential properties in a mixed-use development scheme designed to reduce traffic impacts. With 45 tenants under its belt, NASA is well on the way to implementing its plans.

NASA’s experience with converting Moffett Field into the NASA Research Park provides valuable insights into the advantages and disadvantages of locating private business enterprises on closed military bases. Military bases such as Moffett often provide inexpensive, specialized facilities that would be uneconomical to construct today. For companies looking for cheaper space within their target location, existing military facilities, if well maintained and meeting basic life-safety standards, can often be leased at competitive rates. NASA Ames identified several existing Navy structures that needed only cosmetic improvements and which attracted start-up and small businesses who were willing to otherwise take the space “as is.”

Military bases also offer many unique structures such as airfields, hangars, large warehouses, large floor-plate industrial shop areas, and high-bays that, while usually obsolete, can be put to reuse for new industrial purposes, if—and it’s a big if—the structure is fundamentally sound and meets minimum life-safety codes.

In planning the reuse of military bases, many local reuse authorities secure educational occupancies to support workforce development there. Co-location with university tenants has proven to be a plus for business at the NASA Research Park. The onsite presence of Carnegie Mellon University in its “Carnegie West” campus, Santa Clara University, and University of California Santa Cruz Silicon Valley Center offer undergraduate and graduate degrees as well as research opportunities in engineering, software engineering and software management, e-commerce, robotics, environmental sciences, and high dependability computing. By locating with these educational tenants, business tenants at the park can get early access to graduating students and also learn of cutting-edge technological developments.

Despite the myriad advantages of locating in a converted military base, the challenges of transforming a former base into a hospitable home for business can be many, as was the case with Moffett Field.

The first step in converting a military base for civilian reuse is for the federal transferee or designated local reuse authority (a city, county, joint-powers authority, port authority, or redevelopment agency) to launch a reuse planning process that identifies feasible new uses, density of development, traffic and other impacts, and fiscal costs and benefits.

It is critical to review these development approval documents to confirm that the proposed use fits within permitted uses. NASA Ames adopted its NASA Ames Development Plan, and it was accompanied by a comprehensive list of mitigation measures that all projects need to review and adopt as appropriate.

Overall project approval time can vary widely, depending on the level of local review. Projects that are already consistent with adopted reuse plans will find it easier to obtain permits than new uses which require revisions to the reuse plan.

Most closed bases have significant environmental contamination that requires remediation, usually by the branch of the military that owned the base. Since lenders and investors are understandably wary to take on pollution legal liability and remediation risks, care must be taken to determine how well conditions at the base have been characterized, and assess whether and what kind of remediation program have been put in place by the responsible party. These studies typically are completed as part of the reuse planning process.

At Moffett Field, there are two Superfund sites with two responsible parties (the Navy is responsible for one site, a group of semiconductor companies for the second). Each responsible party at Moffett signed a separate agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and state of California Environmental Protection Agency that set remediation standards and actions.

To reduce the overall risk to new businesses locating to NASA Research Park, NASA prepared an Environmental Issues Management Plan that sets forth protocols to follow when making improvements to buildings or undertaking new construction. To facilitate the interaction between regulatory agencies and the responsible parties, NASA prepared a template coordination agreement for construction that involves modifying remediation facilities such as underground pipes and monitoring and testing wells. Having these pre-negotiated agreements permitted NASA to expedite its leasing and get new tenants in the research park quicker.

While new users of older military facilities or land are not typically responsible for existing environmental conditions, purchase or lease of existing facilities or purchase of land for new construction can expose you to pollution legal liability and remediation risks that can be mitigated through obtaining an indemnification and/or insurance program. Having a site with remediation programs in place and the template coordination agreement resulted in tenants being able to secure these coverages and/or indemnities at NASA Research Park.

Another common problem with closed military bases is infrastructure. Most bases have old systems with limited capacity and substantial deferred maintenance. Often the occupancy of existing structures served by older or poorly maintained systems results in unreliable service, particularly with respect to electrical power.

Further adding to the challenge is that base reuse plans often call for a parcelization scheme and development program that necessitates removal or abandonment of existing systems and installation of all new systems. These costs can be substantial. NASA estimates that its re-search park will require $155 million in new infrastructure systems, including roads, water and sewer, reclaimed water facilities, water storage tanks, storm drainage, electrical power distribution systems, and gas lines.

To finance these upgrades or replacements, the local reuse authority typically prepares an infrastructure financing plan that indicates the costs and how they will be financed through development impact fees, hook-up charges, other charges, and/or bonds. In some cases, the U.S. Office of Economic Adjustment and other state, federal, and local grants are obtained to underwrite a portion of these costs.

Despite these challenges, NASA has proved that a converted military base can make sense for many businesses. The park has attracted a lot of private industry interest. In September 2005, NASA Ames and Google Inc. signed a memorandum of understanding for collaborative research and the development of up to 1.2 million square feet of office/R&D space. The active research areas for NASA/Google collaborations include large-scale data management, massively distributed computing, entrepreneurial space development, and bio-/info-/nano- convergence technologies.

Other notable high-tech tenants at the research park include Bloom Energy (solid oxide fuel cell systems), Aprion Inc. (wireless application network systems and services), Changene Inc. (bone mass loss drug therapies), M2MI Inc. (machine-to-machine intelligence systems), IntelligenTek, Inc. (3-D interface design; audio-visual algorithms), and Tibion Corp. (orthotic medical devices), just to name some.

 

 

 

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