Redstone Gateway Plans Announced

Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle discusses the importance of Redstone Gateway, a 468-acre office and retail development located at Gate 9 of Redstone Arsenal. (Click photo to enlarge.)

Leaders with Redstone Arsenal and the city of Huntsville recently presented designs for Redstone Gateway, a 468 acre development that will help with growth on the Redstone Arsenal and from new contractors coming because of BRAC 2005, with developers from Corporate Office Properties Trust (COPT) (NYSE: OFC) and Jim Wilson & Associates. COPT and Jim Wilson & Associates formed a joint venture, Redstone LLC, to perform the work. According to the developers, currently this is possibly the largest real estate project in the nation.

Redstone Gateway is a 468-acre land parcel adjacent to Redstone Arsenal. The land is owned by the U.S. Government and is under a long-term master lease to the developers through the Enhanced Use Lease (EUL) program. Through this master lease, the joint venture will work closely with Redstone Arsenal to create a business park that will total approximately 4.6 million square feet of office and retail space when completed. In addition, the business park will include hotel amenities. Approximately 4.4 million square feet of Class A office space will be built in three phases, with three to six story buildings containing 80,000 to 165,000 square feet, of which 1.2 million square feet will be secured office space.

"Our expansion to the city of Huntsville fits within our Super Core strategy of locating adjacent to government demand drivers," stated Randall M. Griffin, President and Chief Executive Officer of COPT. "Our site is located at the entrance to Redstone Arsenal, one of the largest army bases in the U.S. with significant expansion requirements as a result of BRAC. We plan to build a Class A office park that will capture this demand as well as support the needs of existing COPT tenants located at the base," he added.

Garrison Commander Col. Robert Pastorelli said that the EUL project has been in the works for many years, and he says that the development is essential as Redstone Arsenal continues to grow.

“The EUL has been a dream of mine and several of my predecessors. We all noticed that we had a shortage in R&D space on the arsenal. This will help us fill a void that we have [a 1 million square foot shortage],” he said.