Stillwater wants to land National Guard armory from Bloomington

A new National Guard armory could come to Stillwater soon if the city can find $2 million to buy land for it.

The deal would mean that 53 full-time members of the 1st Brigade Combat Team headquarters staff would move from Bloomington, and 436 soldiers in the brigade's Special Troops Battalion would train on weekends in Stillwater.

The $20 million armory would be worth an estimated $6 million a year to Stillwater in salaries, supplies, utilities, mess hall groceries and other spending related to the armory, according to Guard projections.

"This is no longer a pipe dream," Mayor Ken Harycki said of the project that's been years in the works. "We're bringing jobs and a mass infusion into the local economy during a very bad economic time."

The brigade is part of the fabled 34th Infantry Division, also known as the Red Bull unit, which has a long history in overseas fighting. The brigade is one of only seven heavy brigade combat teams in the United States, said Brigadier Gen. Joe Kelly.

"We won't have tanks rumbling down Main Street," Harycki said. He said the new armory would be similar to a school, with no artillery fire or other shooting activity involved.

City leaders also are reviewing a plan to build a new fire hall next to the proposed armory to replace the current downtown location. Although that construction might not happen for years, Harycki said, sharing walls with the armory could cut the cost of the fire hall in half.

The National Guard has 63 armories in Minnesota.

Bill Turnblad, the city's development director, said that 12 to 15 acres of land are needed inside Stillwater's city limits. He declined to say where the city is looking, but said some parcels have been identified as possible sites.

The deal has been under discussion for several years, he said, but has become more urgent now that the National Guard has money to build a new armory.

The current 1920s-era armory, a two-story brick structure on Chestnut Street, has been the recent home for the military police detachment of the Red Bull unit. No decision has been made on whether the MPs might be sent elsewhere, Lt. Col. Kevin Olson, a Guard spokesman, said Friday.

The 1st Brigade Combat Team soldiers had occupied the Stillwater armory -- its "historic home," the Guard said -- until they were mobilized to Iraq in 2005 and 2006 and then moved to an armory in Bloomington. The brigade is larger now, Olson said.

Before the terrorist attacks in 2001 the city had land chosen in the west business park near the St. Croix Valley Recreation Center, but that's now unsuitable, Turnblad said. "Given the aftermath of 9/11 all armory buildings that are constructed have a much larger buffer zone and security elements included in them," he said.

The fire department, which operates out of City Hall near downtown, needs a more central location to produce the best response times to western neighborhoods, Turnblad said. "It worked fine when we had the historic boundary to the city," but response times to the west have dropped somewhat as the city expands, and "it's hard for them sometimes to move about."

Turnblad and Harycki said they imagine the old armory someday would become a community arts center or something similar, but whether the city or a private group would own it remains under discussion.

Preliminary calculations show the land deal would cost the owner of a $300,000 house about $25 a year, Harycki said, but a reduction in debt payments by 2014 would reduce the city's property tax levy to the point where he thinks residents actually would pay less.

"It shouldn't be a large burden to the taxpayer," Harycki said of the land purchase. "We're especially sensitive to that. If $25 secures the future of the fire department, it should be well worth it."