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Tinker communities ready for open house, move-ins soon

  • Published
  • By Brion Ockenfels
  • Tinker Public Affairs
TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. --   Moving is a common part of military life. Some families will be moving into new digs at Tinker when privatized homes open this month.

With the dust not quite settled on 75 new homes slated for occupation by the end of the summer, Tinker's housing privatization developer, Balfour Beatty Communities, is planning a ribbon cutting ceremony July 15, beginning 1:30 p.m. at 5199 Twining Drive.

Cindy Murillo, Tinker's Balfour Beatty Communities site manager, said "Following the official opening of new homes for Team Tinker military members and their families, BBC will host an open house for military members and their families to tour a new homes."

Recently, the Air Force Civil Engineer noted that housing privatization is the greatest quality of life improvement in the last 30 years, providing safe, quality and affordable housing for today's warfighters.

Shane White, Tinker's Balfour Beatty Communities development director, said "We're going to welcome Tinker military families to see firsthand the quality of life improvements that housing privatization brings to servicemembers."

After receiving a sneak preview of a nearly finished home on Twining Drive, a retired Airman said he would have never thought twice about living off base if military family housing like this [Tinker's new privatized homes] was available in the 70's and 80's.

"Many young parents work and save a lifetime to get into homes this nice," the retiree said." "We were poised to hit the ground running for our Tinker military families last July," said Ms. Murillo. "Time has gone by quickly and this has been a huge year with many challenges and equal success."

With phase one construction well on the way at the new Prairieland Neighborhood development adjacent to the Urban Greenway Trail, BBC could have about 31 percent of the new homes completed. That's 124 of the 398 scheduled new homes completed and occupied by the end of the year, said Mr. White.

Additionally, 28 of the 262 homes scheduled to undergo major renovations in McNarney Manor will be move-in ready for new residents by the end of the year.

"To make room for new home construction in the Twining Neighborhood we'll demolish 76 old homes in the Twining Neighborhood to create swing space to build new homes there," he said.

According to Ms. Murrillo, early success in community transformation like that at Tinker is more than rebuilding housing, it's about partnership with that community.

"We could not have made such rapid progress without my support staff, our Tinker residents and base leadership," she said.

She said the flurry of activity should remain fairly constant as BBC crews meet more milestones and support America's warfighters at Tinker.

Housing privatization by the numbers
Housing privatization work at Tinker began as part of the Military Housing Privatization Initiative aimed at improving quality of life conditions, availability and operations of base housing by congress nearly 11 years ago.

According to a recent report released by the Air Force Center for Engineering and the Environment, the program secured nearly $6 billion of development agreements in exchange for $357 million in taxpayer funding, leveraging private sector funding at $16.5 to every taxpayer dollar.

The report states that the Air Force privatized military housing portfolio consists of 28 projects at 40 installations with an end state of 35,114 homes. At the time of publication, the total number of homes meeting Air Force standards is 15,185 with 12,084 new construction and 8001 renovations needing completion by 2015.

Tinker's housing developer celebrates first year
Balfour Beatty Communities will celebrate their one year anniversary a few days early with Tinker Airmen and families with a pool party and burger burn at the Iszard pool and the adjacent soccer field from 3 to 7 p.m.

"The one year mark actually occurs on July 21, and we wanted combine the two events for our Airmen," said Cindy Murillo, Tinker's Balfour Beatty Communities. Fun activities including a dunk tank will round out the evening.

For more information on the special AFCEE CenterViews Special Stakeholders Report go to http://www.afcee.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-090601-074.pdf.