Colorado Springs – The Pentagon’s base-closings plan may include growth at Fort Carson that would require up to $2.3 billion in spending on construction, equipment and civilian workers, The Gazette reported Friday.
The newspaper said the figure is in a document it did not describe. The document also predicts that up to 2,000 more troops could join an 8,000-soldier expansion already expected at the Army post – a move that would raise the population to more than 25,000 soldiers.
“What the document provides is a very rough estimate,” said Lt. Col. Barrett Larwin, the post’s public-works director. “None of those assumptions have really been validated.”
The estimate assumes ultimate approval of a Pentagon plan that would give Fort Carson two combat brigades and more than 1,000 troops for a division headquarters. The report also suggests Fort Carson could get nearly 1,000 soldiers in an aviation brigade and a battalion of Green Berets now stationed in Germany.
