To understand how defense companies choose locations, we spoke with Jamie Newell, a site selector at Walbridge who lives just outside Fort Bragg in North Carolina.
Newell’s checklist for defense site selection:
Workforce: Including security clearances
Sites that physically qualify: Places that can store munitions – including proper spacing between buildings and underground igloos for storage. SCIFs too.
Testing & training: Airspace, range access, and blast zoning.
Former WWII-era depots have become attractive, Newell says.
Texarkana, for example, is now a focal point for drone and munitions manufacturing as part of the emerging Sky Foundry effort, precisely because Red River Army Depot already meets those stringent requirements.
“Munitions projects are looking at Texarkana because they have buildings that are positioned perfectly apart from each other.”
Newell also points to Laurinburg–Maxton Airport in North Carolina, which already has approvals to test drones.
“Wherever there’s blast zoning right now, wherever there’s a military base that’s allowing private companies to come in and test munitions – that’s where a lot of these projects want to co-locate.”
