Coming together

CEDAR RAPIDS - The area's National Guard and Army Reserve troops are moving in together.

“It just made sense,” said Col. Scott Ayres. “We're able to drill and work together as we would on deployment.”

Ayers, the Iowa Army National Guard's chief of installation management, was standing in the drill hall of the new Cedar Rapids Armed Forces Reserve Center as dedication ceremonies wound up Wednesday afternoon. The new building at 1500 Wright Brothers Blvd. SW replaces both an old National Guard armory nearby and the Army Reserve's training center in northeast Cedar Rapids.

“There's always been a little bit of competition between the National Guard and the Army Reserve,” said Col. Arlan DeBliek of the Reserves. “This building represents a new start, a new era. Deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan prove there are no lines or boundaries between Army units.”

“It's a huge benefit, being in the same building,” said National Guard Maj. Robby Cain of Urbana, the facility's garrison commander. “We share the cost of maintenance and administration.”

Cain is one of about 35 full-time staff working in the new facility. He estimated 650 to 700 soldiers are members of the five National Guard and four Army Reserve units based there, where they'll muster monthly.

The Guard and Reserves also opened two similar but smaller facilities this week in Muscatine and Middletown, near Burlington. National Guard Col. Greg Hapgood said the $38 million Cedar Rapids center, paid for entirely with federal funds, is the most expensive single project in the Iowa Guard's history.

The 114,000-square-foot center includes recruiting and administrative offices, several classrooms, secure storage for weapons and other gear, a fitness center and “probably the most up-to-date kitchen in the state,” Cain said.

The kitchen even includes an automated potato peeler, he said, eliminating the traditional punishment for wayward privates.

The facility also includes a 60,500-square-foot Field Maintenance Shop with work bays, tools and parts rooms, and wash bays to maintain the vehicles assigned to the locally stationed units.

Ayres said planning for replacement of the 1970s-era buildings began eight years ago, but funding wasn't released until spring 2010, with a catch: a 15-month deadline for completion of all three Iowa projects.

“It was a surprise,” Ayers said. “But if we had said we weren't able to do it, we wouldn't have got the funding.”

The center is planned to meet the units' needs for 67 years.

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