Redstone "ready to move dirt" for Space Command HQ

• The priority is road projects to support the area workforce, officials said Wednesday at a media event at the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber of Commerce.

Zoom in: Martin Traylor, deputy garrison commander at Redstone, said temporary facilities for Space Command will be constructed in the next 18 to 24 months.

• Military Construction will handle building the headquarters, work that usually takes five to seven years, he said.
• "But that command can theoretically be operational here very, very quickly and under the three-year timeline easily," Traylor said. "We're the Army; we're going to adjust to whatever we need to do."

Catch up quick: The U.S. Air Force completed an environmental assessment in 2019, looking at six different locations for the headquarters and giving some details about the building.

• The assessment measured potential impacts of 1,800 employees in a 464,000-square-foot, four-story structure with approximately 402,000 square feet of parking in surface lots or decks.
• The location currently comprises 60 acres of pasture near the center of the arsenal, along Toftoy Thruway between Neal and Marshall roads.

"As soon as we get what their requirements are, we absolutely are ready to move dirt," Traylor said.

Zoom out: Mayor Tommy Battle said 110,000 people a day come to Huntsville to work and 60,000 leave Huntsville to go to another community to work, "so those road plans are very, very important to us."

• Those plans include adding lanes to I-565, as well as improvements to I-565 Eastbound, and the intersection of I-565 with Memorial Parkway, said Madison County Commission Chair Mac McCutcheon.
• State Rep. Rex Reynolds, chair of the House Ways and Means General Fund Committee, said "We all jointly believe that we need to expedite funding for infrastructure in North Alabama because of the growth."