NGIC project should boost local economy

by Susan Gibbs Record Reporter
Published: June 12, 2008

Via its National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC), the federal government is already pouring $129 million a year into the area’s economy.
In a couple of years, that amount could as much as double, says Fort Belvoir Public Affairs Officer for the United States Department of Defense’s Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission Travis Edwards.
“The Defense Intelligence Agency’s (DIA’s) new Joint Use Intelligence Analysis Facility will hold approximately … 1,000 employees,” Edwards explains. 
Of that 1,000, 200 will be moving into the new building from NGIC’s existing Nicholson Building, and 800 will be new to the installation. Both facilities will be tenants of Rivanna Station.
That’s a very big deal for Greene County because Rivanna Station is located just two and a half miles south of the Greene-Albemarle county line, off U.S. Route 29.
“All local counties are wise to pay attention (to what that expansion will mean),” says Jay Willer, a Ruckersville resident who is executive vice-president of Blue Ridge Home Builders Association. “The new jobs will be high-paying stable jobs, which means lots of those folks will be buying homes.”
And more.
The 1,200 people - with a median income of $100,000, including benefits—currently employed at NGIC contribute to that $129 million figure, but that doesn’t include revenue “generated by visitors to NGIC, who stay in local hotels and eat local foods,” says Captain Aimee Jaskot, NGIC public affairs officer.
Edwards does not yet have a survey on the incoming DIA personnel, but he expects that the new $58.5 million, 170,000 square-foot facility will “have a higher than average salaried employee.
“The intelligence personnel working there will be middle- to senior-level military officers and government civilians,” Edwards explains.
Personnel already at NGIC work in fields ranging from engineering and science to translation, political science and foreign affairs, and computer science.
Eighty-three percent of NGIC’s employees are civilian, and the remaining 17 percent are military, Jaskot says.
According to DIA’s website, located at http://www.dia.mil, its workforce is skilled in military history and doctrine, economics, physics, chemistry, world history, political science, bio-sciences, computer sciences and more.
According to Edwards, Fort Belvoir serves as the “landlord” to NGIC and DIA, who are “installation partners,” or tenants of Fort Belvoir.
As such, Edwards says, it is Fort Belvoir’s responsibility to ensure that construction of the Joint Use Intelligence Analysis Facility and relocations are complete by September 11, 2011 to be in accordance with the law.
That date, Edwards explains, is required by the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure legislation. But: “That’s the has-to-be-done date, and there are not any signs that it’s an unrealistic date,” he says.  “If people are in earlier, all the better.”
The personnel being realigned to Rivanna Station are part of a larger BRAC move of 20,300 positions to Fort Belvoir.
Staffs from Fort Belvoir and its installation partners are already doing public relations in the area.
On June 4, representatives met with the Albemarle Board of Supervisors in a meeting that Edwards describes as “very positive.
“The supervisors understand the type of positive growth and myriad of other positive economic impacts that can arise from the increase in personnel at Rivanna Station,” Edwards says. “We have already begun dialogue with (Albemarle County) planners and look forward to coordinating with them and other counties as we move forward.”
The information Fort Belvoir will be putting out to interested parties as it comes available includes the estimated time of arrival for personnel and the financial impact that personnel will have on the area. He estimates that many employees, given the choice, will relocate to this area.
“It is highly likely that (DIA) personnel will be open to the idea of buying homes and living in a wider area crossing into several counties,” Edwards says. “The housing prices and commute times near Rivanna Station are much better than in the National Capitol region.”
Edwards stresses the importance of regional county planning while advising localities that a portion of the employees are military personnel that normally have three-year tours.
If personnel are ever deployed from the area, families often decide if they should move “home” while their service members are gone or stay in the area. The same thing happens when service members retire from the military, explains Edwards.
That choice, he says, is “why quality of life initiatives, recreational activities, and military support programs are important when dealing with retaining military families.
“(They) are used to recreational and social activities prevalent in Washington D.C. that add money to the regional economy,” he says. “Coordinated planning efforts … are critical to capturing all or part of this additional positive economic impact.”
Rivanna Station has been at its present location - 2055 Boulders Road in Albemarle County - since 2001, but the nation’s intelligence community has been in the area for about 30 years.
“The United States Army’s Intelligence Threat Analysis Center was in Charlottesville in the early 1970’s,” explains Jaskot. NGIC was created in 1994, and it moved to its present site in 2001. The site was chosen because “the Rivanna River offered a natural boundary for the installation.”
Now, the Joint Use Intelligence Analysis Facility will also enjoy that natural boundary.