Thirty years after the Sparkman Center complex opened at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala., construction is still a major part of the U.S. Army's work at the arsenal. In fact, building projects have been ongoing at the base since it was established in 1941.
Replacing the roofs at the Sparkman Center is among the many ongoing efforts at the sprawling facility. Named for the late Sen. John Sparkman, an Alabama Democrat who died in 1985, the center opened in August 1994 when six buildings were completed.
Today's $12 million roof project is expected to be finished around March, the Redstone Rocket reported Sept. 4, but it is just one of a myriad of construction efforts under way at Redstone for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).
On a recent weekday morning, Kris Leatherman sits at his desk in the U.S. Army Garrison Directorate of Public Works (DPW) at Redstone. As the construction branch chief in DPW's engineering division, he was asked by a Rocket reporter about ongoing construction within the federal facility.
"Here it is, all 10 pages," he replied, referring to his stack of Excel sheets. "We average about $120 million a year in construction through our division. We've been averaging that for about three or four years now, so it's a pretty solid number for us."
Those projects include sustainment, restoration and modernization efforts, he added, and include roads, utilities, roofs and more.
"It covers major facility systems and other basic functions to maintain the backbone of the Arsenal," Leatherman explained.
Besides Army construction funding, the costs also include tenant-funded requirements for new construction and renovation of administrative, laboratory and testing facilities at the Redstone Arsenal.
"We're helping the tenants accomplish their mission," he said.
The Army DPW's engineering division receives assistance in managing these projects from the garrison's base operations, resource management, contracting, master planning and environmental division.
Among the other major Redstone Arsenal projects that DPW is overseeing include:
- A $6 million Digital Simulation and Analysis Center, now under construction on Anderson Road for the Space and Missile Defense Command. It is due to be finished late this fall, according to Leatherman.
- A recreation park is currently being built at the corner of Patton and Gray roads. By November, the approximately $800,000 project will include a pavilion, two pickleball courts, a basketball court and a large parking area.
- Repaving a portion of the Von Braun Complex parking lot.
- A new operations facility for the Space Development Agency.
- Installing electric vehicle chargers throughout the federal complex.
- Assistance by the DPW's construction branch in the project management of the Food, Beverage, and Entertainment Center, which will be north of the military base's commissary. It is estimated to be finished in July 2025.
- A $14 million phased construction of an industrial waterline that Leatherman described as being a replacement of the Redstone Arsenal's old industrial watermain, which has long served as "the backbone of the installation's water distribution system."
Two road paving projects also are planned for the next two-and-a-half months at Redstone: one on the north end of the installation and another off Redstone Road, the Rocket noted.
Leatherman explained that, currently, West Line Road is getting new asphalt, and beginning at the end of September, Goss Road will be paved between the Links golf course and Redstone's Gate 8.
"Some of the side streets going into the housing area will have some effects," he said earlier this summer at the Redstone Town Hall. "We just ask that everyone pay attention when you're driving through that area."
Both paving projects should be completed by Thanksgiving, Leatherman noted.
Garrison Commander Col. Brian Cozine told the Rocket that the new recreational area at the arsenal is among several Resilient Energy Funding for Readiness and Modernization (REFORM) projects on the post.
Under the program, the Army recognizes validated energy cost savings based on reduced energy consumption, then shares that savings 50-50 with the installations that generated those savings.
"Redstone construction is the lifeblood of how Redstone accomplishes its Army missions and goals," noted Rickey Hammond, the DPW's engineering division chief.
Long History of Big Achievements
The U.S. Army's Redstone Arsenal installation, on the south side of Huntsville, in Madison County, encompasses 7.8 sq. mi. and includes a wetland area serviced by the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge. The base hosts a variety of tenant commands, including the FBI and the NASA-operated Marshall Space Flight Center.
The original Redstone facility combined two adjoining arsenals into one post in 1941 to make conventional ammunition and toxic chemicals during World War II. Seven years later, Redstone was designated as the home of Army missiles, but its peak employment of more than 19,000 workers during the war dropped considerably during peace time to the point that it became a little used post with only a few hundred people working there.
However, because of the base's massive available space, empty buildings, and ease of access to rail, highway, and water traffic — via the Tennessee River — the Army chose Redstone as the place to consolidate its newly formed rocket program. In gained worldwide fame in the 1960s when NASA's Saturn launch systems for the Apollo program, including the rockets that put humans on the moon from 1969 to 1972, were developed at the Marshall Space Flight Center.
Today, the Redstone Arsenal continues to be the birthplace of many different missile and rocket programs. About 75 federal agencies also work within the Alabama facility.
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