December 17, 2009
By John Andrew Prime
jprime@gannett.com
The Air Force is the first announced tenant at the new Cyber Innovation Center in Bossier City, with announcement today that personnel and offices with the 8th Air Force will be located there.
The headquarters of 8th Air Force should start moving into the new building by March, said Craig Spohn, the center's executive director.
The lease is for two years, one year firm with an option for a second, and is for $8.5 million, Spohn said. The 8th Air Force, which controls the nation's B-52 and B-2 bomber fleets, will occupy three of the CIC's five floors and more than 20,000 of its total 45,000 square feet of secure compartmentalized informational facility, or SCIF, space.
"We are literally the only place that mission could go," Spohn said. The move of the numbered air force is the result of a tightening of space needs on the base, which now is home to the new Air Force Global Strike Command. Spohn stressed the use by 8th Air Force is temporary while renovation of an existing building on base is completed to house the unit.
"The move here is temporary, and everyone recognizes that," Spohn said. "It's a temporary solution to a near-term problem."
The CIC building is the first structure on the 66-acre, $107 million National Cyber Research Park being created north of I-20 across from Barksdale and east of Bossier Parish Community College.
When Global Strike Command stood up at Barksdale in August, U.S. Sen. David Vitter said the state's Washington delegation would seek to get 8th Air Force into the CIC, and a joint press release from Republican Vitter and his Democratic counterpart, Sen. Mary Landrieu, and U.S. Rep. John Fleming, a Minden Republican.
"This move makes logistical sense for the 8th Air Force and fiscal sense for Northern Louisiana," Landrieu said. "Rather than have the 8th Air Force’s personnel scattered in temporary facilities across Barksdale, they will all be in one building at the Cyber Innovation Center. The community made a large investment in building the CIC, and this move allows that space to fulfill one of its chief purposes of supporting the mission needs of Barksdale Air Force Base."
Vitter said the announcement is the result of months of work with the Air Force and the Department of Defense.
"The Cyber Innovation Center plays an important role in the economy of Northwest Louisiana, and I am confident that the 8th Air Force will be very comfortable there while their permanent home is being renovated at Barksdale," he said.
Fleming said it was the outcome of visionary work on the local level.
"In today’s post-BRAC environment, these types of relationships, which further solidify the bonds between the Department of Defense and the community, are absolutely essential to ensuring the long-term viability of Barksdale as a premier Air Force installation," he said. "I am delighted that Maj. Gen. (Floyd) Carpenter and his leadership team at the Mighty Eighth will have a modern, secure facility to execute their important mission in support of Global Strike Command."
The CIC has not announced any other tenants or an official opening date, though conventional wisdom is that federal agencies and government contractors that require the nationally coveted SCIF space have been courted. CIC representatives say their concern is not booking space in the existing building but planning for future structures on their campus.
Barksdale, home to not only Global Strike Command and 8th Air Force but also 2nd Bomb Wing and the 917th Wing, has an annual impact of around $700 million, but Spohn estimates that will increase dramatically over the new few years, possibly tripling to just over $2 billion a year.
"This is what we set out to do," he said. "Securing the mission at Barksdale Air Force Base and establishment of our knowledge-based work force."