City braces for Reserve unit move to post

City officials are concerned that a long-standing Army Reserve unit will move to Fort Drum and abandon its headquarters at 500 S. Massey St.

The 479th Engineer Battalion, housed at the Leso-Leano Reserve Center, is scheduled have a new headquarters constructed on post this year, city officials have said.

City Manager Mary M. Corriveau said Police Chief Joseph J. Goss, Planning and Community Development Coordinator Kenneth A. Mix and Information Technology Director Peter J. Keenan are scheduled to inspect the present facility this week.

"They just want to check out the facility, just to see what it could be used for," Mrs. Corriveau said.

The Police Department now shares the Metro-Jefferson Public Safety Building with the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department.

While city officials have said the reserve unit is going to move from the South Massey Street facility in 2010, the military has not confirmed that.

Fort Drum public affairs officials directed a reporter's request for information to a Reserve unit in New Jersey. A message left with that contact on Friday was not returned.

The 10.3-acre facility at South Massey and Pine streets includes a 15,194-square-foot building, a 10,080-square-foot storage area and seven bays used for vehicle repair over 8,670 square feet, according to city tax records.

The structure was built in 1958.

"It's a good-sized piece of property within the city that has been occupied for years by the Army Reserve," Mrs. Corriveau said. "We're very interested in what goes there next. We want to make sure that whatever goes there is a good mix with the surrounding neighborhood."

In February 2004, more than 400 soldiers from the battalion returned from Fort Hood, Texas, where they had been stationed to assist soldiers deploying to and from Iraq and Afghanistan.

More recently, in July 2008, the unit returned home to New York after a 12-month deployment in Iraq, where it cleared improvised explosive devices from roads and built patrol bases.

Mrs. Corriveau said the city does not yet have any concerns about environmental contamination at the site.