New buildings for reserve complex
A ground breaking for two new buildings at the Grand Prairie Armed Forces Reserve Complex to housing units from U. S. Army Reserve and the Texas Army National Guard was held Tuesday.
The Army Corps of Engineers said the new buildings in total will cover 225,000 square feet at a cost of $31 million and will facilitate 1,000 soldiers. One of the buildings is to be used as a training facility and the other a shop.
An Army Reserve facility in Fort Worth will be transferred to the Veterans Administration and Texas National Guard buildings in Arlington and Irving will be closed. All the Army Reserve and National Guard personnel at these locations will be relocated to the Grand Prairie complex.
Roger Manaugh, Base Transition Coordinator, said that since its opening the Grand Prairie Armed Forces Reserve Complex, formerly the Naval Air Station, has brought between 500 – 1,000 new jobs to the city.
Mayor Pro Tem Ruthe Jackson gave the crowd a history lesson when she told the crowd that in her youth she lived near the location of the two new buildings.
