Colorado Springs notches big economic development win

Driving the news: The Pentagon's Portfolio Acquisition Executives, or PAE, that oversees Space Force infrastructure spending is moving its office from Los Angeles to Colorado Springs.

• The office holds broad authority to distribute the vast majority of its $4 billion budget to projects that support Defense Department initiatives.
• Potential contracts could build test and training environments, offer mission support capabilities and build facilities for advanced space systems, officials said.

What they're saying: "The relocation of the Space Force infrastructure PAE … reinforces that Colorado Springs is becoming one of the most strategically important places in America for space defense and national security innovation," Johnna Reeder Kleymeyer, president & CEO of the Colorado Springs Chamber and EDC, told us in an interview Wednesday.

The big picture: The relocation is part of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s plans to reconfigure procurement to improve warfighting.

• It's a big win for the Springs after President Trump moved U.S. Space Command to Huntsville, Alabama, in 2025.

Zoom in: Reeder Kleymeyer said her organization is looking forward, not back, after the loss of Space Command.

• The new focus seeks to capitalize on the PAE's move by attracting more space and military contractors to the Springs.

"Knowing that this industrial PAE has a $4 billion decisioning power, if I'm a company, I want to be in close proximity to that organization … so that I'm thought of when there are contracting opportunities," she told us.

• "That's how you build out an economic development cluster."