This project defines a decision support system developed to permit the user to perform a cost - benefit analysis for any military installation cited for closure, relocation, or privatization. The procedure recognizes both the economic costs and strategic benefits of a feasible solution. Though the cost estimates for a particular study may vary in magnitude, the economic portion of the model must focus on the net savings to the tax payer. Detailed cost estimates for each alternative have been developed at a level so that sensitivity analysis can be performed on any of the input parameters. Individual cost elements have been summed to yield the net cost increase / decrease to the United States tax payer. The resultant cost figures were converted to an economic score. The paper also describes a effective method to evaluate the benefits derived from implementing various alternatives. By incorporating a group participative process using multivoting and the Dunn-Rankin technique, the values resulting fro m benefits have yielded a benefits score. The Brown-Gibson model, which considers both subjective and objective measures, was used to depict the combination of economic and benefit scores to provide an overall cost - benefit score. A graphical illustrat ion of the cost - benefit tradeoffs serves as a useful tool in assessing the risk associated with a decision. The results of the analysis have supported the Department of the Navy's decision to privatize the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, Indianapolis, IN. The Department of Defense is considering alternatives for many military installations, this process will facilitate those decisions. / Master of Science

U.S. military bases and installations represent trillions of dollars of capital investment towards the nation’s defense infrastructure. The Department of Defense, in its response to the end of the Cold War with the Soviet Union in the 1980s, sought to reorganize and optimize this basing infrastructure to meet the emerging threats of the 21st century. A series of nationwide Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) efforts were chartered by Congress to facilitate this task, identifying hundreds of obsolete or unneeded military installations. During the last BRAC effort in 2005, the Naval Support Activity New Orleans was targeted for closure, with its U.S. Navy and Marine Corps tenants to be reassigned elsewhere. In response to this threat, a group of retired military and civilian elites formed a non-profit entity known as the New Orleans Federal Alliance (NOFA), chartered to lobby the BRAC Commission to salvage the West Bank portion of the NSA from closure and establish a new mixed use, public-private Federal City complex in its stead. The purpose of this study was to examine the life cycle of NOFA and its partners in the context of the Federal City project over a ten year period. Interviews of key personnel involved with this coalition revealed remarkable insight into the characteristics associated with its formation, mobilization, sustainment, and fragmentation. The data illustrated the delicate relationship between the military history of New Orleans and its unique culture, and how that culture influenced actor behavior through the varied governing subsystems in the region. As one would expect, local politics dominated the adverse dynamic of the coalition’s solvency, heightened significantly in national visibility by the effects of Hurricane Katrina. The result was the dissolution of the NOFA-centered coalition and the failure of the Federal City project to achieve full maturity.

This thesis analyses major U.S. military bases closed by the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission since 1988. The study focuses on geographic patterns of pre-existing versus BRAC bases, statistical attributes, environmental restoration, and reuse of bases. Comparative case studies supplement the analysis, highlighting rural versus urban location, success versus failure, politics, conflict, and local versus national goals. Thesis findings are that: 92 bases closed versus 97 commonly published; a fairly even national closure pattern occurred, indicating Commission efforts to achieve equity, except for three closure clusters indicating efforts to consolidate functions in some regions and leave others; base reuse, while commonly perceived negatively, has been positive in most cases; the BRAC process is becoming more efficient, such that allowed years between BRAC closure decisions and base closures should be reduced from six to three years to benefit both communities and the Defense Department.

Closing England Air Force Base (AFB) emerged as a possibility following the first Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) round in 1988. The central Louisiana community responded with a dual strategy: defense, implemented by a highly visible group of mostly elected officials who fought to save the base; and offense, implemented by a small group of professionals working in the background to develop a contingency plan. Together, they managed both sides of the change equation, political and technical, and produced a military to civilian conversion. This thesis focuses on policy issues of base closure and ingredients for success and failure among communities affected by such disruption. The main research question is: Was the military to civilian conversion of England AFB successful; and if so, how and why? In answering this question, hopefully, the work also illuminates how success is defined and identifies some of the strategies adopted to produce a successful conversion.

The dissertation explores the financial ramifications of US military base closure on local community real estate property values. The dissertation examines an area that has not received sufficient research. Previous works on military base closure by Bradshaw, Kroll, Corley, Kirshenbaum and Harlan (1995); Dardia, McCarty, Malkin, and Vernez, (1996); Hooker and Knetter (2001) and Krizan (1998) examine more generalized economic factors such as employment and macroeconomic activity. More recent published dissertation work by authors Hall (1998) and Poppert (2002) have provided interesting explanatory hypotheses to assist municipal and state leaders in crafting working plans to assist communities where base closure occurs. This dissertation intends to look into the effects on real estate property values in the wake of military base closures. The dissertation expands the study of base closure effects into a relatively new area on the fluctuation of real estate property values. An enhanced understanding of how military base closures affect real estate values will have implications for real estate investors, developers, city and county government planners, and budget directors from local school districts to state government.

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