Closed Air Base Manages a Difficult Economic Rebirth
New Year’s Day 1988, and the celebration in Portsmouth suddenly turned sour.
“We were told to come over to Pease, and we were given pamphlets on closure,” longtime Mayor Eileen Foley recalled.
A federal commission had decided that Pease Air Force Base, whose huge B-52 bombers were part of the U.S. nuclear umbrella during the Cold War, would be closed to save money. Many residents and businesses feared an economic calamity, and the pessimism grew as the region slipped into a deep recession in the early 1990s.
Now called Pease International Tradeport, the base is a mainstay of the regional economy. But the transformation was far from easy, especially in the beginning.
“We’d lose one wing, they’d play taps, and we all cried. One by one everything left,” said Foley, now retired.
Taps was played a final time in March 1991. Gone were all 3,500 military personnel who lived on the base when the closing was announced, plus their families. Gone also were 1,100 civilian jobs.
Opened in 1957, Pease was the first military base in the country closed in what became four rounds of closings intended to save the Pentagon money. Throughout the 1990s, similar scenes played out at dozens of bases throughout the country.
The bases ranged from offices and supply depots with fewer than 100 civilian employees to Navy bases with more than 8,000 civilian jobs.
“Some people likened closure to death,” said Patrick O’Brien, deputy director of the federal agency that helps with economic revival. Areas go through a period of grieving, then adjustment, then overcoming the problem, O’Brien said.
The new Pease, the only base in the Class of ‘91, has been one of the more successful. Its more than 100 businesses account for about 4,100 jobs and Pease has commitments for almost 2,000 more.
The tenants include the resurrected Pan American Airways, a hotel, high-tech firms, a pharmaceutical company, two state colleges, federal visa and passport centers, a golf course and a brewery.
The former base now has 2.7 million square feet occupied or under construction for businesses, and Pease Economic Development Director David Mullen expects 1 million more this year, “doubling the best year we’ve ever had.”
All of the major bases that closed in 1992 and 1993 have more employees now than when they closed, according to the federal Office of Economic Adjustment, which measures success by job replacement. For bases that have closed since 1994, there’s no final verdict on their success, although most seem to be doing well.
New tenants at other closed bases range from Disney Films at California’s Mare Island Naval Shipyard to museums, prisons and retirement villages.
Pease, with its coastal location about 50 miles north of Boston and a runway able to handle the largest planes, appeared to have a head start compared with most doomed bases. Despite opposition to the closing, expectations were high.
Then came the recession.
“You would have had to be a miracle worker to get something going in those years,” said Jeffrey Simon, president of the board of the National Assn. of Installation Developers, an organization representing developers of closed bases.
Aging buildings and infrastructure not built for development were among the problems the city faced. Like many bases, there were environmental problems because of waste left behind by the airfield. There also were concerns about noise and traffic from new development, and disagreements over control and how the land should be used.
To help the transition, the state created the Pease Development Authority. The agency attracted some businesses, but was accused of not doing enough.
“For a long time, there wasn’t [development], and a lot of harebrained proposals that would not have been in the best interests of the seacoast,” said Peter Loughlin, Portsmouth’s representative on the authority.
Foley credits newly elected Gov. Jeanne Shaheen with ordering the state and local officials to work out a plan in 1997. With help from the blossoming economy, the Tradeport has been a magnet for development ever since.
O’Brien praises the state for committing money soon after the takeover--about $54 million for business loans and operating costs.
The airport and ground transportation were improved, wetlands were protected in a wildlife refuge and loans to businesses were guaranteed.
The authority, which runs the Tradeport, was able to pay its own operating costs for the first time last year and began repaying state loans with a $650,000 check.
When companies such as Burgon Tool Steel Inc. in Hampton and Sprague Energy Corp. in Portsmouth expanded not long ago, both moved to Pease. Officials of both companies said they might have left had Pease not been there.
The space the companies vacated became available for new businesses.
“It’s a win-win for all of us,” Bohenko said.
But growth has also brought complaints. In Newington, neighbors are unhappy about Pan Am flights that warm up at 5 a.m. and don’t use sound barriers as earlier commuter planes did. The Tradeport also cut down trees, another sound buffer, to expand the lucrative 18-hole golf course to 27 holes.
Loughlin said growth inevitably brings complaints, and he is pleased overall.
“It’s been a good balancing act. I think Pease has developed in a positive way,” he said.
