The Horsham Township Authority for NASJRB, the group tasked with redeveloping the Willow Grove air base, appointed RKG Associates, Inc. as its planning consultant at its meeting on Wednesday. 

The authority approved hiring RKG, which is headquartered in New Hampshire and has an office in Virginia, at $470,000. RKG’s contract will be funded through a $480,000 grant received to cover costs associated with the base redevelopment, authority executive director Mike McGee said. 

RKG will work with the authority in holding numerous public meetings and gathering and analyzing data. The information will be used to prepare a redevelopment plan for the 892 acres of surplus land once the military ceases operations in September. The plan is due by year's end. 

“We will be completed in the timeframe,” McGee said. 

As a first order of business, RKG Associates will join the authority for a public meeting on Feb. 7 at 7 p.m. in the Horsham Township Community Center, 1025 Horsham Road.

“It’s worth our while to reiterate to the public what the process actually is,” McGee said.

VP and Principal Russell Archambault of RKG Associates said the meeting is meant to prepare the community for the next 10 months and to have them “weigh in” on the base’s future.

Archambault said his firm will undertake “intense data analysis” to determine the condition of the base’s physical infrastructure.

“We need to learn as much as we can about what’s still there and what’s still useful,” he said. “You’re dealing with oftentimes a historical use that you hope is well-documented in terms of what operations went on there. You’re probably better off at a military base than some other location where the record keeping isn’t as good.”

Archambault said his firm has worked with communities in more than 50 military base redevelopment projects, in instances where the military installation shut down, was realigned or was growing.

In other business, McGee said he has applied for a 90-day extension to submit revisions to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for a 113-unit housing development. That project is proposed for a 52-acre section of base property located in Warminster. The land is situated on Shenandoah Woods and Jackson Road in Warminster Township and Ivyland and had been used as military housing. If the extension is granted, the HLRA would have until May to amend and resubmit its application.

 “We believe we’re on the verge of putting a plan together that will make everybody happy,” McGee said.

Still another moving part is the authority’s involvement in a lease agreement with the Delaware Valley Historical Aircraft Association. McGee said the Navy will lease the land that houses the museum on Route 611 to the HLRA and the authority would in turn sub-lease it to the DVHAA.

“They want DVHAA to be off the base by March, or a lease in place,” McGee said.

 DVHAA Executive Director John Rehfuss said he reviewed the sub-lease on Wednesday with his attorney. Rehfuss said he expected it to be finalized by the Feb. 7 meeting.

“It’s not a matter of if,” Rehfuss said. “It’s a matter of when.”