Edwards Air Force Base has broken ground on the service’s first privatized on-base apartment complex, a move aimed at curbing an ongoing housing shortage for airmen stationed at the massive installation in Southern California.

The base, home to the 412th Test Wing, has faced housing issues for its more than 10,000 military and civilian personnel across the 481-square-mile installation. Long wait times for the dorms or on-base housing are common. This new complex — which has been approved by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget — will eventually provide 142 apartments with a total of 246 beds for airmen.

“Many airmen at the 412th Test Wing have been impacted by the shortage of housing options on or in proximity to the base. That’s why we’re going to flip the script and try something new, something tailored for the men and women who serve here and to our families,” Ravi Chaudhary, assistant secretary of the Air Force for energy, installations and environment, said in a news release Tuesday. “I can say this: We hear you, we see you, but now it’s time to deliver for you.”

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The project will be overseen by Mayroad, which is responsible for private housing on the base, and aims to get senior airmen with ranks of E-4 and above, as well as students of the Test Pilot School, into the units. The service hopes it will allow for consistent lodging other than the limited housing options available in the remote communities around the base or in the expensive Los Angeles area nearly two hours away.

Even if housing can be found in the vicinity of the base, the cost is often too steep for an airman’s Basic Allowance for Housing to cover. The average price for a home in nearby Palmdale, California, for example, is more than $500,000, according to Zillow.

Design and cost plans for the project will be reviewed in early 2025, with construction to follow. The base expects to have the apartments completed by 2026.

If successful at Edwards, the Air Force is hoping it can replicate the model in other areas where housing is either limited or too expensive.

Col. Douglas Wickert, 412th Test Wing commander, said in the press release that Edwards has been home to many firsts: breaking the sound barrier, the first flight of the B-2 Spirit, and now the base can “celebrate one more: the Air Force’s first commercial apartment complex.”

The groundbreaking for the first Air Force apartment complex comes as the military as a whole has faced heavy scrutiny for the conditions of its barracks, dormitories and on-base housing options in recent years.

A damning report from the Government Accountability Office last year identified a myriad of quality-of-life issues at military facilities across the country.

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