7th SPECIAL FORCES GROUP PREVIOUS HOME IN FORT BRAGG EXPEREINCE A MAJOR DEVELOPMENT BOOM

As Paul Harvey would say, “And the rest of the Story”. I have heard a number of folks explaining why a large number of 7th Special Forces Group has not move their families to Florida, yet. One of the biggest reasons was they were having trouble selling their homes in Fort Bragg. This is can’t be further from the truth (See below). The Fort Bragg area is experience a much larger boom than us, with some more folks back filling this area. As many will learn, the 7th Special Forces Group is expecting communities in the local area, not just a development with homes sites. This area is going to be a home for the 7th Special Forces group for many years to come. This is much different than the 3 or 4 your tour and out like the Air Force has experienced over the years. There are other reasons, which I can explain in detail, if you wish. Oh, did I remind you, I was a Military Housing Director for the Southeast United States.

Fort Bragg construction is expected to spur development boom> <
By Henry Cuningham and Andrew BarksdaleStaff writers
You might call it Fort Bragg's final frontier.
For the next decade, most of Fort Bragg's growth will be on a 600-acre bulge that juts into Fayetteville between Chicken Road on post and Cliffdale Road off post. The former ammunition dump is Fort Bragg's last large tract of undeveloped land not subject to environmental restrictions. Post officials are calling it Patriot Point, a reference to the Patriot missile-armed unit that is occupying part of the space. The military is pouring millions of dollars into building roads, utilities, offices, barracks and motor pools. Much of the development will be for growing special operations units, including the 3rd Special Forces group. The growth on Fort Bragg's south side comes despite a shrinking military budget, and the construction spending will provide jobs in a still-slow sector. That could become a bigger boom if, as expected, the growth on Fort Bragg is mirrored by civilian development just to the south in one of the largest empty tracts in Fayetteville. By the time the Patriot Point development is finished, it will have a military population of 7,000 to 12,000 - bigger than many Army posts across the country. The planned construction carries a price tag of $370 million. Just this month, the Army Corps of Engineers announced the award of $27.9 million in contracts for two projects on Patriot Point. Not that most people in Fayetteville know it. The development isn't secret, but it is all but invisible from nearby civilian areas. "Our development on Fort Bragg will go largely unnoticed by the general public because it's hidden in that ... corner of the post," Col. Steve Sicinski, Fort Bragg's garrison commander, recently told a civilian audience. "... Ironically, it's within a stone's throw of Cliffdale and Reilly roads, which is pretty busy and heavily developed commercially."
Significant growth

Despite its relative obscurity today, the development of Patriot Point could have a major effect on Fayetteville's growth in years to come. Today, most of the area along Cliffdale Road south of Patriot Point is an oasis of farmland tucked away amid urban corridors. To the east, North Reilly Road is lined with businesses. The road is congested during rush hour because it has an access gate to Fort Bragg. To the west is Rim Road, which is lined with apartment complexes, subdivisions and strip centers around Rim Road's intersection with Cliffdale Road. In late 2005, the state Transportation Department completed a nearly $16 million project to widen Cliffdale Road to two lanes in each direction west of Reilly Road. The section of Cliffdale running past Patriot Point is a divided, four-lane road with a grassy median and a 50-mph speed limit. The area became part of the city in 2005 in what was called the "big bang" annexation. The growth on Fort Bragg is coming during the same decade when the Outer Loop - Interstate 295 - will be advancing through the same part of western Cumberland County. State plans call for an interchange connecting the loop to Cliffdale, just south of Patriot Point. When that happens, Fort Bragg wants to put another access gate from Cliffdale Road directly into its new development. All that adds up to the potential for significant growth along Cliffdale. That could be a mixed blessing for the surrounding community. Residents in the Bone Creek subdivision, which is next to Patriot Point, are worried that all the planned changes will worsen congestion on Cliffdale Road. The subdivision has only one entrance at Cliffdale and no traffic light. "That's going to confuse an already chaotic situation," said Lionel Cartwright, coordinator of the Bone Creek community watch group. His wife, Gladys, agreed. "We can barely get out after waiting and waiting," she said. Other residents are more upbeat about the coming changes, especially a new Fort Bragg access gate on Cliffdale Road. Residents in western Fayetteville who work on Fort Bragg mostly use the North Reilly Road gate. Spc. Mario Gilmore, who lives off Hoke Loop Road, said it now takes him about 45 minutes to get to work. "It's pretty packed," the 24-year-old said. Samuel McIntyre, a 26-year-old laid-off Fort Bragg contractor, said new shopping centers would mean more jobs, and that's good in this economy. Still, with growth comes more traffic, McIntyre said. "It's going to kind of stink to get that all the way out here," he said.

Undeveloped acres
One landowner will play a significant role in the future of the area. William T. "Bill" Sanders of Wrightsville Beach owns more than 500 undeveloped acres in the area. Most of his land is south of Patriot Point. His lawyer, Stephanie Autry of Raleigh, said the land has been in the Sanders family for about a century. In 2010, the Department of Transportation acquired about 100 acres of the family property for the planned Outer Loop. Sanders and state officials fought in court over the value of the condemned land. According to court records, they settled for $15.8 million. Autry said that in court, both sides relied on independent appraisals, planning consultants and zoning experts. All agreed that the best use for the Sanders property is heavy commercial with a mix of office and institutional use and apartments. Autry said Sanders likely will sell the land for that kind of development some day. "He can wait until he gets what he thinks is a fair price when he's ready to sell it," she said. Large swaths of land on the southern side of Cliffdale Road near Patriot Point have never been developed for a number of reasons. One is that for many years, the Transportation Department did not know the exact route of the Outer Loop, so officials set aside a 1,000-foot-wide corridor where development was off limits. Only recently has the state narrowed the highway's intended route. The land also has potential barriers to development, according to Cumberland County planners. Some contains wetlands and streams. A high-voltage transmission line runs partly through the farmland. The land is zoned for agricultural-residential use. It's the city's most rural designation, currently prohibiting the kind of development envisioned. Scott Shuford, the city's chief development services director, said any zoning changes to accommodate growth on Cliffdale Road would be up to the Fayetteville City Council. "There's a lot of factors that have to be taken into account and evaluated by staff, besides just what some appraisers think the appropriate value of the property is," Shuford said. One factor is the traffic capacity for Cliffdale Road, Shuford said. The city does not want to encourage more development than the newly widened road can handle, he said. On average, about 32,000 vehicles travel on the widened section of Cliffdale Road near Reilly Road, according to the Transportation Department. The figure is nearly 2 years old. In 2004, Cliffdale Road handled about 26,000 vehicles a day. Greg Burns, the division engineer for the Fayetteville office of the Transportation Department, said a widened Cliffdale Road was designed to comfortably handle about 37,000 vehicles a day. When that capacity is reached, he said, congestion will start to become a problem.
City planning
Fayetteville planners have not turned their focus to the Patriot Point area. Shuford said city officials are developing land-use and traffic studies for two older corridors elsewhere in the city: Bragg Boulevard and Ramsey Street. "When staff time opens up, that would probably be an area we'd like to look at at some future point," he said of Cliffdale Road. Shuford said the city's interest in how Cliffdale Road develops will ripen when Patriot Point and a proposed access gate become closer to reality. But, Shuford said, the planned Outer Loop interchange at Cliffdale Road will be a bigger driver for growth than Patriot Point. In fact, he said, the Outer Loop will "dramatically change how people get around" and, as a result, may lead to fewer cars on Cliffdale Road. Construction on the Outer Loop is under way between the All American Freeway eastward to Ramsey Street, where the highway stops. Under funding schedules through 2020, there is no money budgeted to extend the Outer Loop to Cliffdale Road. But Fort Bragg's plans for Patriot Point could accelerate that funding schedule, Burns said.
Supply point
Fort Bragg's plans at Patriot Point are possible because officials have moved the post's ammunition supply point to an area off Vass Road on the north side of the installation. The Patriot Point land has stuck out from Fort Bragg since it was acquired 57 years ago. The government obtained the property for use as Fort Bragg's ammunition supply point in 1955, said Glen Prillaman, a Fort Bragg master planner. The government spent $229,400 for 1,404 acres. The western part of the tract is wetlands, and only 600 acres can be used. When the land was purchased, all of the surrounding civilian area was rural. Lance Locklear, a master planner who has done most of the work on Patriot Point, recalls cows munching grass around the bunkers to save the cost of mowing. Last fall, Fort Bragg relocated its explosives to the new ammunition supply point - an area protected from the kind of civilian encroachment that has occurred on each side of the Patriot Point bulge. Moving the ammunition opened the area to handle explosive growth in military units over the past decade: Two special operations battalions have turned into brigades. The 108th Air Defense Artillery Brigade moved to Fort Bragg from Texas. And the 3rd Special Forces group has outgrown its current home on Fort Bragg. Since 9/11, Special Forces groups have gotten larger and developed new requirements for their headquarters facilities. The 7th Special Forces Group was able to get a campus to meet its needs when it moved from Fort Bragg to Florida last year as part of the base realignment process. N"We are going to be matching the same facility standards and sizes that were built at Eglin Air Force Base for the 7th Special Forces Group," Prillaman said. "That's the modern compound. That's what a current Special Forces needs as far as facilities in order to do their mission." The 3rd Group area will hold a central position when the Patriot Point construction is completed.
Construction work
On Thursday at Patriot Point, construction workers were welding, hammering and driving forklifts. Not far away, two battalion headquarters for the 108th Air Defense Artillery were in business: flags flying and the olive-drab Gatlin-gun-style air defense artillery weapons of the past on display. While soldiers were sweeping and mowing around the completed battalion headquarters, construction workers were at work on the unit's future brigade headquarters. Not far away, drivers were whizzing by on Cliffdale Road, most probably unaware that the decisions have already been made that will change the nearby landscape on and off Fort Bragg.
Military editor Henry Cuningham can be reached at cuninghamh@fayobserver.com or 486-3585.Staff writer Andrew Barksdale can be reached at barksdalea@fayobserver.com or 486-3565.