KellyUSA Reviewing Master Development Plan

Kelly Air Force Base formally ceased to exist in August 2001, but KellyUSA had been working for several years to attract businesses to the facility in South San Antonio. The first targets were aerospace, cargo and transportation companies to take advantage of the base's assets. Tenants include Boeing Corp. aerospace operations, Standard Aero, Pratt & Whitney and Chromalloy as well as a mattress company and a golf cart-repair business.

KellyUSA had 11 million sf of office and other space including four million sf of warehouse. The companies at Kelly employ about 12,000 workers. The revised master plan still calls for reaching 21,000 employees, but it pushes the date back from 2006 to a year or two later.

KellyUSA officials have decided it's time to adjust the development plan. "Now that we're in the middle of it, let's look at everything that was envisioned and how much of it can actually happen, how much of it didn't happen and should be dropped and reworked," says Teresa Nino, authority's director of communications and public affairs.

The new version of the plan will include analysis of competitors including pure commercial centers like Alliance Airport in Fort Worth as well as other converted military bases. "We find that in the real world it doesn't matter if we were a closed military base or not," Nino tells GlobeSt.com. "We have to compete with the big dogs."

The redevelopment team says it thinks it can still reach 21,000 employees, but it's going to take a bit longer than the first master plan envisioned. Also, the team is expanding the kinds of business it will seek.

"At first, the easiest thing was to go for the aerospace companies because of the runway. Those were the facilities that were easiest to lease out," Nino says. "And now we have to do a little bit of reaching to get to the other fruit."

One of those fruits, Nino says, is to go after the rail industry. The eastern part of the Kelly property is separated from the rest by Union Pacific railroad tracks. The idea is to develop East Kelly as a place where cargo could be transferred from rail to rail or to other types of transportation.

A draft of the master plan is being circulated among Kelly constituents including the development corporation's board. A final draft should be ready by year's end.