UNIVERSITIES GUIDING FORD ORD'S CONVERSION : GROWING CAMPUS.

Byline: Thom Akeman Scripps-McClatchy Western Service

Fort Ord, two years behind its original schedule, is still considered a model of military base conversion in the United States.

The state universities - granted $1 billion worth of Army property in 1994 by a special act of Congress - are the keys to the reputation.

``Yours is used as an example of a successful turnover with the university there,'' said Susan Hanson, a Defense Department spokeswoman at the Pentagon, which tracks 100 major base conversions in the nation.

``It's really hard to compare because there are so many variables,'' said Ben Williams, who monitors the 34 base conversions in California for the governor's Office of Planning and Research.

``But in terms of land conveyance, Fort Ord is way ahead of every other base because of the universities,'' Williams said.

California State University, Monterey Bay, has 1,350 students and 325 faculty and staff members today, and a growing campus in Seaside developed from 1,300 acres, 190 buildings and 1,253 housing units the Army gave the state.

The University of California, Santa Cruz, just got its regents' approval to start on the first phases of a Monterey Bay Education, Science and Technology Center in Marina, to be developed on another 1,100 acres given to the state by the Army.

Those reuses - which account for about 9 percent of the land at the massive base - may put Fort Ord in the national spotlight.

But an aded 30 percent of the base has been turned over to civilians in the two and a half years since the base formally closed Oct. 1, 1994.

The biggest chunk - 7,205 acres - was turned over to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management as a nature preserve.

Other pieces of Fort Ord have become Marina Municipal Airport, which has attracted businesses that have about 200 employees; the Seaside municipal golf courses; public and private schools; and housing for four agencies that assist the homeless.

Private ownership

The parts of the base that are to go to private owners for homes and businesses - roughly 15 percent of the 28,000 acres at Fort Ord - could reach the market by the end of the year, according to the most optimistic estimates available.

The Fort Ord Reuse Authority, a regional government made up of the eight cities and county most affected by the closing of the Army base, released a revised reuse plan last month. That plan is scheduled for public hearings April 24 and May 9, then FORA board action May 22.

If and when it is adopted, FORA can formally apply to the Army for the parts of the base that will ultimately be sold to private owners. The application will start the final reviews and price negotiations.

``My guess is we'll be looking at some economic conveyances a year from now,'' said Michael Houlemard, acting executive officer of FORA.

He said he expects the parts of the base available for private owners to be conveyed in phases as environmental questions are resolved. The bulk of that turnover will probably occur in 1998 and 1999, Houlemard said.

But the economic-conveyance process is taking about twice as long as expected at every base, said Ben Williams in the Governor's Office.

``There are catch points all along the way,'' he said.

So far, only one piece of property has been sold to a private owner on the California bases that the Pentagon started closing in 1988, Williams said.

Success story?

At Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino County, a development company paid $9 million in January for a 30-acre site it earmarked for a 400-room hotel, a hockey rink and a virtual-reality center alongside what is now San Bernardino International Airport.

Norton was designated for closure on the Base Realignment and Closure Commission list in 1988, three years ahead of Fort Ord.

Even with that breakthrough, Williams said, it would difficult to consider any base conversion a success or failure.

``I don't think at this point you can judge anybody,'' he said. ``Base conversion is a very long process.''

And all the bases are different in terms of sizes, locations, usable buildings, pollution and local jurisdictions, said Maj. Marty Houser, a Defense Department spokesman.

For example, Houser said, most of the bases closed in the military downsizing have to deal with standard pollution from petroleum, oil and lubricants.

No others have had to deal with the unexploded ordnance problems that are tying up about a third of Fort Ord.

Different challenges

Of course, no other bases have been as large as Fort Ord, been in such affluent communities or had so many communities involved in reuse planning, Houser said.

``They're all different,'' he said. ``They all have different assets. They all have different challenges.''

The closest conversion analogies to Fort Ord, he said, might be the Sacramento Army Depot, the second-largest Army base to close in California, and Fort Devens near Boston, the second-largest Army base closed in the nation.

The Sacramento Army Depot reuse is, indeed, a success story.

But the property left behind by the Army was basically a 500-acre site with ready-to-use warehouses and a trucking terminal in south Sacramento.

The city of Sacramento guaranteed a start-up loan on the property in order to entice Packard Bell to move an assembly operation from an overcrowded location in Southern California.

The new factory has added 4,000 jobs to the city's tally.

That's a significant portion of the 14,000 civilian jobs created by base reuses in California, Williams said. But the recovery is, so far, far short of the 99,000 Defense Department jobs lost in base closures.

On the East Coast, Fort Devens officially closed a year after Fort Ord did, leaving behind 2,000 unemployed civilians and 4,400 acres of land available for reuse.