JV Partners Win $750M Military Housing Pact

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EL PASO-In an ongoing federal initiative to upgrade military housing, a joint venture with Texas and California ties has secured a $750-million contract to rehab and develop single-family and multifamily units at three US Air Force bases. The deal includes leasing 433 acres from the USAF for 50 years.

Developing as BLB Family Housing LLC, Hunt Building Corp. of El Paso and Pinnacle AMS Development Co. LLC of Irvine, CA won the contract for Barksdale AFB in northwest Louisiana, Langley AFB in Virginia and Bolling AFB in Washington, DC. The seven-year construction schedule calls for renovations to begin July 1 on 362 historically significant homes. In addition, there will be 3,189 new housing units built as duplexes and quad-plexes for Air Force families. Under the contract, the JV also will take over maintenance and operation of existing and future housing developments.

A spokeswoman for Hunt Building Corp. tells GlobeSt.com that the Barksdale acreage currently is a combination of existing housing and greenfields. “The housing will either be renovated or demolished and replaced with new,” she says, adding that the team is still evaluating what structures will remain and which ones will go the way of the wrecking ball.

Hunt’s team will handle design-build and asset management services. Pinnacle will oversee property management activities. MVE & Partners Inc., also from Irvine, and Gile-Buck Architects of Boise, ID are the architects. EDAW, another Irvine firm, is the land planner and landscape designer.

The renovation is part of an overall privatization plan by which military housing passes from government to private control. The plan falls under the auspices of the Military Housing Privatization Initiative of 1996, in which military services and bases enter into agreements with private developers who own, maintain and operate family housing under a 50-year lease. The Hunt-Pinnacle JV also won contracts for identical projects at Dover AFB in Delaware, Fort Lee in Virginia, Scott AFB in Illinois and Nellis AFB in Nevada.