Leveraging Hill's assets

T

he wider business world may be nervously watching Wall Street with the hope that the subprime lending crisis won't tip the nation's economy into recession. But in Utah, so far, housing hasn't tanked and the broader real estate market -- especially the commercial sector -- continues to be strong.

That doesn't mean Utah business leaders-- and especially Top of Utah business leaders -- don't also share a sense of dread about potential financial doom, but it derives from a different source.

The state dodged a bullet a couple of years back when Hill Air Force Base's Ogden Air Logistics Center was not closed by the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC). Still, everyone knows there will be one or more base-closure rounds in coming years, and that Hill, like most other bases large and small, could be at risk.

Given that likelihood, it's encouraging to see progress on the West Side Development Enhanced Use Project at Hill. It's a unique public-private partnership that could eventually see up to 550 acres of ground on the base's west side -- roughly paralleling I-15 -- leased to private companies. The tenants would include high-tech or other companies serving the military, as well as commercial and even retail businesses and hotels. In other words, the potential for a massive development, in phases, that would further bolster the Top of Utah's economic health.

To be sure, base officials don't describe it as BRAC-proofing Hill. They're looking at this strictly as a way to use -- and, indeed, profit from -- "underutilized" military real estate. In return for the leases the Air Force will eventually grant, the private developers will replace about 1.3 million square feet of warehouse and office space in the area now considered antiquated and substandard. As planned, it will benefit both the military and the broader community surrounding the base.

But the larger story of the West Side Development Enhanced Use Project is that it will strengthen our economic position and help to inoculate Hill against future rounds of base closings -- or, heaven forbid, if Hill were to close, it would soften the blow.

At least that's the theory, and one that everybody hopes is never actually tested.

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