The Sunnyvale Sun

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Photograph by Brian Connelly

The satellite dishes and blue cube (background) in place since the 1960s at Onizuka Air Force Station in Sunnyvale no longer perform classifed operations as they did during the Cold War.

Onizuka to close, be redeveloped

By JASON GOLDMAN-HALL

Just as Moffett Field's P-3 Orion planes patrolled the Pacific Coast for enemy submarines during and after the Cold War, Sunnyvale's Onizuka Air Force Station kept a close radar-dish eye on the sky. The station monitored satellites and provided communication for classified and unclassified projects.

But after the fall of the Soviet Union and years of military consolidation, the station was selected in September to be closed and redeveloped by the U.S. Department of Defense. The closure is part of a base realignment and closure list. Even though the closure will remove a long-standing Sunnyvale landmark, it gives the city more land at Moffett Park to house high-tech companies and research facilities.

On April 11, Sunnyvale City Council members met for the first time as the Local Redevelopment Authority for the site. The LRA will prepare a reuse plan for the station and gather community input on possible uses in the future. According to Sunnyvale communications officer John Pilger, the LRA should have gathered all necessary community input and will submit its plan to the department of defense by the end of 2007.

Within a year of receiving the plan, the Department of Defense needs to formally decide on a course to follow, and it must close and redevelop the station by Sept. 15, 2011.

The first issue faced by the LRA was the possible redevelopment of approximately 2.5 acres of the 23-acre site into a research facility for the Department of Veterans Affairs. It had first pick on the land because under base realignment and closure procedures, federal agencies are given the chance to reuse that land before it is turned over to outside agencies.

Mayor Ron Swegles said the city would like to house the VA, but not in its proposed location. Due to the shape of the land, the 2.5 acres the VA asked for would have made almost 4 additional acres unusable.

He said city staff was instructed to work with the Department of Veterans Affairs to come up with a better location.

Another problem is the Department of Defense's tendency to turn old bases into housing.

"It's not an ideal place to put housing, although housing is one of the prime things the government wants to do with bases that are being phased out," Swegles said.

The Moffett Park area of Sunnyvale--north of Highway 237--is Sunnyvale's main technology park that houses Lockheed-Martin, Yahoo! and other major industry players. That entire area has been identified as possible "incubator space" for future developments in biotechnology or nanotechnology.

Sunnyvale is currently looking for resident volunteers to sit on a citizens advisory committee that would work with the LRA on possible uses for the Onizuka Air Force Station. For more information, visit www.sunnyvale.ca.gov or call the city's intergovernmental relations office at 408.730.7739.