For Immediate Release March 29, 2006

For more information: Gabrielle Rhodes 240.497.6675

Innovative public-private partnerships benefit San Diego community

Within days the United States Navy will finally choose a private developer for its long-awaited San Diego Broadway Complex. It will be interesting to see who the lucky winners are and what their final plans entail.

In the end however, despite some of the concerns recently expressed surrounding this project -- and such issues arise in all major developments of this magnitude -- if the Navy's recent public-private partnership track record is any indicator, it doesn't matter who actually wins the contract. When all is said and done and the project itself has been completed, it is pretty clear who the real winner will be: the San Diego community.

Over the last several years, the Navy's partnerships with private developers have had a substantial impact on the San Diego economy, and in the process they have radically transformed the Navy and the way it does property development.

Back in 1996, the United States Congress approved the Military Housing Privatization Initiative (MHPI), an innovative program that allows the military to obtain private-sector capital and expertise in order to develop, manage, and improve military housing. San Diego became one of the first communities in the nation to embrace this creative and entrepreneurial approach. In the years to follow, through the groundbreaking work of its public-private partnerships the MHPI would not only prove to have a lasting and positive effect on San Diego military bases, but also on the greater San Diego community itself.

For example, between 2001 and 2005 Clark Realty Capital in partnership with the Navy invested nearly $400 million in San Diego's local community. Even more significant, over 65 percent of the partnership's work in San Diego goes to small business enterprises and locally-owned companies. In all, this one partnership has created an estimated 1,500 jobs in San Diego.

Also in the works is a public-private partnership between Clark Realty Capital and the Navy to develop the military's first privatized bachelor housing project at Naval Station San Diego. Called Pacific Beacon, this proposal will not only improve the lives of the Navy's single sailors, but like other previous MHPI partnerships, it will serve as an economic catalyst for the entire region.

These private-public partnerships allow the Navy and its partners to give a great benefit to the sailors who are defending our country and the families that support them. And as will no doubt be the case with the Broadway Complex, they also are a positive influence on the community of San Diego, having contributed to the great economic success and community revitalization within the region. As a result of the MHPI, the Department of Defense has been able to provide the nation's service men and women with the best housing the marketplace has to offer with minimal tax-dollar investment.

San Diego has a longstanding tradition of encouraging innovation and entrepreneurialism. With its thriving biotechnology, electronics, telecommunications and retail industries, it is home to many of the nation's most pioneering and profitable companies, as well as to countless budding start-ups. It is no accident then that San Diego is also where the Department of the Navy chose to implement its   pioneering public-private ventures program, an initiative that in recent years has transformed much of the Navy's family housing in San Diego into new, world-class residential communities.

Because of these partnerships, San Diego's residents -- civilian and military -- are considerably better off today than they were a few short years ago. And they've accomplished this simply by doing what they've always done -- encouraging innovation and entrepreneurialism throughout their communities. So whoever the Navy chooses to partner with on the Broadway Complex project in the next few days, San Diego's military and civilian residents can be certain of one thing  -- there is a time-tested system in place that works to ensure that they are always the ones who come out on top.

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