$85M Housing Project Planned for Dyess AFB

ABILENE, TX-Hunt Building Co. Ltd. has landed an $85.3-million contract to build 326 multifamily units on 110 acres at Dyess Air Force Base. The El Paso-based Hunt will start prepping the development land in September.

Hunt's crew will raze 405 dwellings to make way for three new neighborhoods, which have yet to be named. The developer was one of two in the running for the Department of Defense plan to replace base housing that's at least 40 years old.

The one- and two-story designs will come on line as 119 duplexes and 88 single-family dwellings, all with two-car attached garages, according to Robert Cabello, Hunt's senior vice president. The three- and four-bedroom dwellings will average 1,900 sf.

"It's for both enlisted and officers for all ranks through colonel," Cabello says. He tells GlobeSt.com that the plan is to start turning over keys in fall 2007 and complete deliveries in spring 2008. The neighborhoods will sit on the southeast corner of the base.Cabello says Hunt is working with a design that was 35% set in place by the USAF. Gile Buck & Associates of Boise, ID is adding the finishing touches for the brick and hardy plank designs. Hunt senior estimator Mario Gonzales was the project leader for the Dyess proposal.

In 1995, Hunt built 173 multifamily units of off base housing at Dyess and did an on-base project in the late 1990s. The latest development program is designed to provide USAF personnel and families with civilian-comparable, high-quality residential units, which the military deems is critical for retaining career-minded individuals. Hunt, an affiliated of Hunt Building Corp., has completed military projects in 38 states since 1970. Currently, the developer has projects under way in Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Kansas City, MO and Virginia.