Military Bases NO SALE! - LAND LEASE FEDERAL REAL ESTATE -- A Stan Klos
Commentary
Military Bases
"No Sale!"
Now that the Pentagon has recommended the closing of 33 major military
installations throughout the
United States lawmakers will be focused on
NIMBY (Not in
my back Yard) as they seek to protect defense spending and jobs in their
respective communities.
Closing military bases and forts is nothing new in
North America.
The first mass closing and downsizing of forts occurred just
after the British militarily expelled the French from
North America in 1763.
My favorite Fort Closing story actually occurred right here in
Pittsburgh, the city where I acquired and 14 years
later sold RE/MAX of
Pennsylvania n/w.
In 1772 a beleaguered and debt ridden British government decided to close
Fort
Pitt to cut their military budget and shuffle troops to the politically unstable
Colony of
Massachusetts. It
was at this very site, 20 years earlier, that the French built
Fort
Duquesne to secure their claims from the source of the Ohio River to the
Mississippi. The Governor of
Virginia decided to challenge the French claim by sending a small
military contingent under the command of Colonel
George Washington to insist that the French abandon the
Ohio
Valley. During a skirmish, now near
Uniontown
Pennsylvania,
Colonel
Washington would fire shots that would
launch the War for Empire. Several years later General Forbes would
finally drive the French from Fort Duquesne. Forbes gave George Washington
the honor to raise the British Flag,
on November
25, 1758, over the charred ruins of
the French Fort. A new fortification was ordered
to be built by Forbes and he named it
Fort
Pitt
after
Britain's Prime Minister William Pitt.
Fourteen years later, after the
British closed the fort in 1772. John Connolly, in 1774, mustered a group of militia and
garrisoned the fortification claiming the territory, under the authority of
Royal Governor Lord Dunmore, for the Colony of Virginia. "Fort Dunmore
Virginia!" was the cry as Connolly pointed to the exploits of George Washington
as proof of Virginia's claim. The local Magistrate and Prothonotary, Arthur St.
Clair, was not impressed with Connolly's account of Virginia Colonial history.
St. Clair, issued a warrant for John Connolly’s arrest in the name of King
George III and imprisoned him in Hannastown. A lengthy conversation ensued
between Governor Penn and Governor Dunmore and counter arrests were made by
Virginia. Connolly was released and returned to Fort Dunmore. In 1775 Lord
Dunmore was in a desperate position. He and Connolly had been working with the
crown to ally Western Pennsylvania Native Americans against the pending colonial
insurrection. These efforts failed and by the Summer of 1775 Lord Dunmore found
himself in a position where the revolutionaries controlled much of his political
base in Virginia. Connolly, who was still in Fort Dunmore, realized he and his
militia were now in hostile territory as it was overflowing with both Virginia
and Pennsylvania Revolutionary War Patriots. Even Arthur St. Clair had resigned
his position as the King's Prothonotary and was now a Colonel in the Continental
Army involved in America's attack on Canada. Connolly's loyalist position was
untenable and he fled the Fort. It, therefore, fell to Captain John Neville and
about 100 Pittsburgh militiamen to take command of the fort and reclaim it for
Pennsylvania.
Arthur St. Clair would go on to become the 9th President
of the United States in Congress Assembled and under his presiding office the federal
government would enact both the U.S. Constitution and the
Northwest Ordinance. As crucial as the former was; it
was the implementation of the Northwest Ordinance that held high the
hopes for a nearly bankrupted
United States.
This Ordinance of 1787 was passed to federally govern land that would become the five
States of
Ohio,
Indiana,
Illinois,
Michigan, and
Wisconsin. The
Northwest Ordinance was a crucial to the formation of the United Sates as all 13 states released their
claims to the vast territory empowering a weak federal government with control
over the Northwest Territory. Other articles in the ordinance provided a mechanism for
the federal government to sell large tracts of
land to speculators, immigrants and citizens. This capital would become
the primary income utilized to fund the federal treasury and eventually retire
the debt incurred during the Revolutionary War.
Sixteen years later in 1803, Thomas Jefferson would follow this 1787
blueprint by selling
Louisiana Purchase
land to fund the federal
government and retire the acquisition debt. In fact this form of
land sale funding was so
crucial to the
United States' budget
that each and every President personally
executed all federal land grants until 1833 when Andrew Jackson delegated this exhaustive duty to personal
secretaries. The sale of federal
land
in the 18th and early 19th
Centuries, including the
auction of archaic forts, was the major source of
federal funding in the early years of the Republic. Today federal lands are consistently sold, mostly by
auction, to the citizens and speculators in all 50 States. These sales,
however, represent only a small and irregular source of the income necessary to
conduct the business of the the United States of America.
In 2006, after the political fallout settles
on the current downsizing of U.S. Military Bases, the sale of these assets could
yield unprecedented capital in what is currently the most profitable real estate
market in American History. For instance,
the Fort
Monmouth area, where I "cut my teeth" in marketing real estate and restoring historic properties, is situated on the northern
Jersey
Shore. Properties I traded and restored in
the early eighties for $100,000 to 200,000 are now worth $2 to 3 million as this is one of the
fastest growing real
estate markets in the
United States. This
unprecedented real estate appreciation, in densely population
markets, is the rule and not the exception surrounding many of these vast
Pentagon holdings.
Aside from the Pentagon projected $45 billion in savings, real estate sales from these
bases and forts could net our nation financial windfalls if properly brokered.
An example of what could be netted is reflected in a recent
Bureau of Land Management real estate sale on several large desert
parcels in the
Las Vegas,
Nevada metropolitan area. The result was considered, by most real estate experts, a huge success
netting unprecedented prices for BLM desert property.
I, respectfully, DISAGREE with this method of
liquidating federal real estate.
These BLM, Pentagon and other federal property sales are short-sighted
and as archaic as the
Northwest Ordinance land sales of the 18th Century. Yes federal property has
appreciated and the auction method has netted better then fair market value on
many parcels. Yes the government would be wise to liquidate unwanted
federal land and military bases in the current real estate markets that are
ladened with artificial value. There is, however, a much more sound model for property liquidation, FEDERAL
LAND LEASES. Bill Gates didn't sell MSDOS to IBM and now the company
dwarf's Big Blue. China didn't sell Hong Kong to the British and
now this communist nation has inherited one of the world's great capitalistic
cities. Frankly, the
auction of these and all future public U.S. lands would better serve the People
of the United States by being LAND LEASED instead of being sold to the highest
bidder.
Long term LAND LEASES, say 50 to 60 years,
would net the federal government capital windfalls while alleviating the nation
of costly building maintenance and repair of vacant property. Most
importantly, in 2055-2065, the improved real estate would revert back to the
people to be leased
again, returned to military/federal use or set aside for preservation purposes. Additionally, a steady cash flow and TOP
DOLLAR could be realized from federal land leases if the terms were structured
so portions of the money would flow-in on a yearly basis, instead of one lump
sum. This cash flow would be a true and predictable windfall to the U.S. Pentagon, BLM or National Park
Service operating budgets while the real estate is improved and readied for
federal lease
recycling for in the next century.
If your community looses the NIMBY
Base
Battle of 2005 take heart in the fact the land can be preserved for
future federal re-development if LAND LEASED. Point to China's
reacquisition of Hong Kong in 1999, Bill Gates' MSDOS and urge your
politicians to enact legislation requiring long-term LAND LEASES for the
abandoned forts and bases. In a twinkling of an eye, if the federal
property is land leased, your grand and great grand children will have the
opportunities to re-lease or even reestablish new bases or federal projects in
their 22nd Century backyards. Truly, FEDERAL LAND LEASES are the very
least we can do for these future Americans who are clearly poised to inherit an
energy depleted and debt ridden 22nd Century as capitalistic consumption spreads
through China, India and a host of other Asian nations.
With warm personal regards, I am
your most humble and obedient Servant,
Stanley L. Klos