Not everyone in Nebraska is enthusiastic about missile replacement. “We have some people buying up the empty buildings downtown in preparation for that…I know some of the buyers I’ve been working with have been picking those up just to renovate so that when the missile site project comes they can have residential units available upstairs for people working on that and then hopefully bring some new businesses into town,” Williams said. Caitlin Williams with Home Team Realty said the missile project is also increasing interest in Kimball’s downtown retail district, which has had vacant storefronts for years. It’s not only residential real estate that’s being affected. And the people who were looking at them were all Air Force people,” Porter said. And we were looking after a couple of rentals from friends of ours. “Homes right now are selling like hotcakes here. Construction, including infrastructure upgrades, is expected to begin around 2023.īut Sonny Porter, head of Perfection Turning, a manufacturing company in Kimball, said the project’s already having an effect on the local real estate market. In September, the Air Force awarded a contract to Northrop Grumman for engineering and manufacturing development for the new missiles. But now, the Air Force says it plans to establish a workforce camp in or around Kimball with modular housing to accommodate up to 2,000 construction workers and support personnel for 2-5 years. Since then, it’s declined to an estimated 2,400. Kimball’s population of just over 2,000 in 1950 boomed to almost 4,400 in 1960 and was still nearly 3,700 by 1970. In the 1960s, the arrival of the missiles coincided with an oil boom in the area. “Kimball’s been one of those bust-boom towns you know, and so anytime there’s something that’s coming in, people get pretty excited,” Anderson-Faden said. About 80 of those silos are in Nebraska’s panhandle, with many concentrated around Kimball.ĭaria Anderson-Faden, staff writer for the Western Nebraska Observer newspaper, says many people here welcome the missile replacement project. Warren is the command and control center for 150 missiles and support facilities that occupy nearly 10,000 square miles scattered across Nebraska, Wyoming and Colorado. Warren Airforce Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming. “The GBSD will have increased accuracy, a longer range, as well as enhanced security in terms of the missile facilities and then improved reliability in order to provide our military and our nation with an upgraded and a broad array of options, said First Lieutenant Jonathan Carkhuff, public affairs officer with the 90 th Missile Wing at F.E. Those missiles are about 50 years old, and now, the Air Force says, it’s time to replace them with the next generation, called the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, or GBSD. They carry a nuclear warhead 25 times as powerful as the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in World War II, killing an estimated 140,000 people. That silo can hold a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile, capable of flying more than 6,000 miles at up to 15,000 miles per hour.
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