 >>>
FOCUS ON:
PANAMA CANAL TREATY
TRANSITION.... 1979-1999
Summary of Treaty
Transition Milestones
Military Property
Transfers to Panama |
MILITARY
PROPERTY TRANSFERS (1979-1999) (continued)
| DATE |
PROPERTY
|
REMARKS |
| 1997/
July 31 |
Curundu
Flats Family Housing Area (Pacific
side -- adjacent to backside of Albrook Air Force Station)
183 acres with 107 buildings,
including:
 | 116 family housing units in 54
duplexes and six single houses;
| Bowling alley, restaurant,
club, and some office/commercial-use facilities.
| Adjusted book value:
$22,551,980. |
| |
USE BY PANAMA:
| Panamanian Tennis Federation.
| Housing units sold through
public auction. |
| Los Tucanes Museum of
the Child was constructed 2003-2004 between Friendship
Highway and the nearby gated entrance to Curundu Flats (across
the road from a new Shell gas station in the same area) --
construction was completed in 2004 but not opened as of
December 2004 due to controversy over use of funds donated by
Taiwan. |
|
|
Army Property
Curundu-
History
Curundu-
New Uses |
| 1997/
Aug 29 |
Balboa
Elementary School (Pacific
side, below the Canal Administration Building and next to Goethals
monument) Initially
transferred to the Panama Canal Commission before transfer to the
government of Panama in 1999 for use by the Panama Canal
Authority.
|
Army
- DODDS Property |
| 1997/
Sept 30 |
Albrook Air Force
Station (Pacific side)
769 acres with:
| 468 units of family housing (
consisting of 194 duplexes and 80 single units);
| Several barracks building and
warehouses;
| Officers club and officer
guest houses; community club with restaurant, bowling alley,
shoppette, and nearby swimming pool;
| Chapel, post office, and
several retail stores;
| Building 869 (originally built
as a school but used as the Air Force headquarters for several
years) last housed DoDDS (Department of Defense Dependents
Schools) Headquarters since 1979; partially used by Headquarters of
Special Operations Command-South), unified component command
of the Southern Command;
| Four aircraft hangars (recent
usage as storage and helicopter operations since the
Inter-American Air Forces Academy relocated from Albrook AFS
in 1989 initially to Homestead Base in Florida, then to
Lackland Air Force Base in Texas);
| Stables and other facilities.
| Adjusted book
value:$394,657,406. |
| | | | | | |
|
ALBROOK
AIR FORCE STATION -- front part, hangars in background
|
USE
BY PANAMA:
Albrook has become the local
model for successful, wide ranging conversion of transferred
military bases to full economic use and done so here within the
first five years since its transfer to Panama in September 1997.
Today concentrated at Albrook are commercial services and retail
stores, light industries, air and land transportation centers
(commercial airport and major bus terminal), governmental
activities (including the Civil Aeronautics Authority -- formerly
Civil Aeronautics Directorate or DAC, a new Nautical School, the
National Environmental Authority, and the Office of the First Lady
of the Republic of Panama), secondary and higher education areas
(Saint Mary Academy in Building 869, Specialized University of the
Americas, Nova Southeastern University, and Atenea Institute/Pan
Helenica-Panamanian Educational Center), the new seat of the
Supreme Courts of the Americas, and, in the near future, the
Russian Embassy, which is to be constructed at Albrook. In
addition, construction of new housing areas (first Green Valley,
then Albrook Gardens, and more recently Albrook Park Apartments)
and shopping centers and other centers had generated considerable
new employment opportunities, though many temporary.
Ninety percent of the buildings
and lands of Albrook had been converted to public and private use
within the first 15 months following the September 1997 transfer
of Albrook Air Force Station (by the end of 1998 and the remaining
since then), including the selling of over 400 family housing
units through public auction, according to the Panamanian
Interoceanic Region Authority (ARI). Many of the houses have been
extensively remodeled by their new owners.
| 1
Albrook Air Force
Station front side (from
front gate back to hangars and beyond)
2
Gaillard Highway
(renamed Avenida General Omar Torrijos Herrera) -- road
transferred to Panama October 1979.
3-6
Marcos
A. Gilabert Airport moved from its former
location at Paitilla to Albrook after refurbishing the
airstrip transferred to Panama October 1979 (7) and related facilities (completed end of
1999), plus new construction, including new control tower, new passenger terminal
(4) between existing hangars (3), and new complex of
storage and aircraft hangers (6).
7, 8
Albrook
Los Pueblos Shopping Mall (8) and access road
10 National Transport Terminal for
all buses serving Panama City and interior part of the
country.
11 North Corridor toll road |
| Other New
Uses:
New housing and apartment
areas, such as Green Valley, Albrook Gardens, and more
recently Albrook Park Apartments)
Green
Valley housing area [Photo by WHO 2002]
|
Albrook
Park apartments complex -one of five sections - on
the site of the Officers Quest Quarters [Photo courtesy of ARI website 2003]
|
Education facilities and shopping
centers:
Atenea
Institute/Pan Helenica- Panamanian Educational
Center [Photo by WHO 2002]
|
New
small shopping center across street from former
post chapel. [Photo by WHO 2002]
|
|
For details on these
and other uses of Albrook go to Albrook-
New Uses.
|
Air
Force Property
Albrook-
History
Albrook-
New Uses |
<<preceding
page >>NEXT
PAGE
Site
developed, owned and maintained by
William
H. Ormsbee, Jr.
2005 |
SCROLL