Photo By Staff Sgt. Walter Lowell | The Nevada Army National Guard has vacated its long-running training center, Camp...... read more read more
STEAD — The Nevada Army National Guard vacated its long-running training center Monday.
Camp Stead, located south of the Reno-Stead Airport in Lemmon Valley, had been leased to the Nevada Army National Guard by the city of Reno and the Reno-Tahoe Airport Authority for $1 each year since 1968. After months working to move out of the facility, the Nevada National Guard has vacated the premise in time for the expiration of the 50-year lease Monday.
“We knew several years ago that it was coming due, so we’ve been trying for five or six years or more to try and renew that lease to stay there,” said Clayton Chappell, the director of the Nevada National Guard’s construction, facility and management office. “Recently, we sat down with the Reno-Tahoe Airport Authority and it was decided there’s not an aviation nexus to our activities there.”
The Federal Aviation Administration’s revenue use policy requires that airports receive fair market value for the sale or lease of airport property and facilities for “non-aeronautical use.”
Both the Nevada Army National Guard and the RTAA explored options to extend the lease 30 years under the $1 annual fee.
“Because the premises are considered aeronautical land, the Reno-Tahoe Airport Authority is not in a position to offer the proposed lease term and rent structure…(for) purposes that cannot be performed at a place other than an airport,” a lawyer representing RTAA wrote the Nevada National Guard last October.
After appraisal, the RTAA countered with a $40,000 per year lease offer. The Nevada National Guard declined.
“It was a difficult decision, but with the RTI vacating the property, it became a property looking for a mission and one we didn’t have,” said Brig. Gen. William Burks, Nevada Guard adjutant general.
The 10-acre property most recently housed the Nevada Army National Guard’s Recruitment and Sustainment Program, which includes incoming enlisted Soldiers waiting to attend Army basic combat training or their military occupational specialty training.
Previously, its five barracks, two office buildings and dining facility served as the post for the Nevada Army Guard’s officer candidate school and Regional Training Institute.
The majority of the buildings were constructed during World War II when the Reno Army Air Base headquarters moved from downtown Reno to Lemmon Valley just west of Swan Lake. A year after its construction in 1942, Air Transport Command took over the base.
Following the war, it served as the first home for the Nevada Air National Guard before the unit activated for federal service during the Korean War. The base was renamed Stead Air Force Base in 1951, two years after Nevada Air Guard Lt. Croston Stead died in a P-51 aircraft crash while training near the base.
U.S. Air Force Strategic Air Command’s Advanced Survival School moved to the base in 1951.
The city of Reno took possession of the base after it closed military operations in 1966. In 1967, the city purchased the base from the federal government for $1.3 million. In 1968, Reno entered into a 50-year lease with the Nevada Military Department for the purpose of creating an officer candidate school, a course which was offered there nearly five decades.
The National Guard Bureau has invested in numerous upgrades to the camp, including about $4 million in the past 10 years, Chappell said.
The RTI moved to the North Las Vegas Readiness Center in 2015. With the loss of Camp Stead, the RSP moved to the Washoe County Armory, about two miles northwest of Camp Stead.
“We’re crammed in like sardines at the moment,” said Capt. Alex Stackhouse, the Nevada Army National Guard’s Recruitment and Sustainment commander.
One of the Nevada Army National Guard’s long-range construction projects includes expansion of the Washoe County Armory. Construction on that expansion is set to begin in 2023.
| Date Taken: | 01.02.2019 |
| Date Posted: | 01.02.2019 12:35 |
| Story ID: | 306078 |
| Location: | RENO-STEAD, NV, US |
| Web Views: | 1,424 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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