The Fayetteville Observer - February 18, 2010
The Partnership for Defense Innovation plans to break ground next month on a building at the All American Military Business Park being developed near Santa Fe Drive.

PDI President Scott Perry made that announcement Wednesday night during the nonprofit organization's third annual open house at the Airborne & Special Operations Museum.

Applause followed the news, which Perry said was possible because of 10 months of "persistence and perseverance" of Fayetteville, Cumberland County, the Fayetteville-Cumberland County Chamber of Commerce, PWC and park developer Dohn Broadwell Sr. and his companies.

Perry said the roughly 10,000 square feet of lab space should open in August, and that by this summer it could employ from 20 to 25 people who will help conduct military standard testing for evaluation of radio frequency communications equipment, environmental testing, shock and vibration testings, and evaluation of mobile communications.

Perry said the lab will be owned and leased to PDI by Cape Fear Industries and will be built by Construction Systems Inc.

Since 2007, $7.3 million of federal funding has been awarded to PDI - the majority of it to be used for the expansion of its lab, Perry said.

For PDI - which was originally a program of the Cumberland County Business council but separated from that organization in 2006 - the new facility will play a critical part in advancing its goals, which include fostering collaboration between academia, business and industry and the military and intelligence community.

"In designing our lab capability, we've learned that government agencies and numerous, numerous North Carolina companies travel to Arizona, California, Oregon, Ohio, New Mexico and as far away as France for testing that will soon be available in the new lab facility," Perry said.

But the lab's construction is key to the bigger picture of the Military Business Park, for which PDI's lab will serve as an anchor.

It was roughly 16 months ago that a ceremonial groundbreaking for the military business park was held. In October of 2008, nearly a dozen officials gathered under pine trees, each putting their own words to the project's significance.

That day, U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge likened the event to the groundbreaking for Research Triangle Park. He did so again Wednesday night. Others on hand Wednesday were Reps. Larry Kissell and Mike McIntyre.

At the 2008 groundbreaking, N.C. Rep. Margaret Dickson said the park would become "the epicenter of the transformation of our economy."

Dickson, now a state senator, said this week that considerable progress has been made.

"I think any time you take a piece of raw property and try to turn it into what I hope and believe will be a first-class, world-class business park, it just takes a little while to do that," she said.

One issue has been access to the park. The N.C. Department of Transportation, which controls access to Santa Fe Drive, rejected engineers' early design proposals over worries about congestion. The department has granted a temporary driveway permit to connect the park's entrance road to Santa Fe Drive, allowing for construction of the first couple of parcels. DOT hasn't approved a firm traffic solution.

DOT District Engineer Richie Hines said he recently met again with the land owners and their engineers. Review of the latest engineer plans and meetings will follow, Hines said.

Broadwell's family owns the land for the business park. Broadwell hired Moorman, Kizer & Reitzel to design it. The city and county have been awarded a series of federal grants totaling $750,000 to help cover costs of paving the road and building sewer and water lines in a first phase.

Broadwell confirmed he is talking to potential joint venture partners - two in particular that he said are of interest because of their prior development experience.

The park has potential for 1.5 million square feet of Class A office space that could ultimately employ 4,500, said Doug Peters, president of the Fayetteville-Cumberland County Chamber of Commerce.