Newtown Square Army facility to be upgraded

Congress is making available $20 million to upgrade an Army training facility in Newtown Square, Delaware County, officials announced yesterday.

The earmark, for construction of a new training facility at the Army Reserve Center at 2101 Delchester Rd., is contained in a $1.1 billion spending bill passed last week in the House of Representatives and approved Sunday by the Senate. The bill awaits President Obama's signature.

The facility, which will be built on nine acres and be staffed by 200 people, will help transform the Army into smaller, more mobile units, said Jonathon Dworkin, spokesman for U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak (D., Pa.). The project could bring local construction jobs through a bidding process.

The facility will include administrative, educational, assembly, library, learning-center, vault, weapons-simulator, and physical-fitness areas for nine Army Reserve units, according to information from Sestak's office. The maintenance shop will provide work bays for training and maintenance administrative support.

"This is needed because it is part of the transformation of the U.S. Army, including the Guard and Reserve, into enhanced combat brigades," Sestak said in a statement last night. "The Newtown Square Reserve Center is special because it has to do with providing logistics to the new Army, and in the military we say: Amateurs do tactics, experts do logistics."

Congress funded more than three dozen additional projects for Southeastern Pennsylvania, including $4 million to establish an Air Force enclave at the Willow Grove military base.

Congress also approve $1.26 million for improvements to the Route 422 westbound off-ramp at the Oaks interchange in Montgomery County, and $500,000 to design and construct an interchange between the Pennsylvania Turnpike and I-95 in Lower Bucks County.

Philadelphia University will get $500,000 to conduct research on nanofiber technology with advanced textile manufacturing at its Biomedical Textile Structures Laboratory. Thomas Jefferson University Hospital will get $800,000 for facilities and equipment.

And the Philadelphia Police Department will get $500,000 to buy a ShotSpotter Gunshot Location System (GLS), which calculates the position where a gun was fired and sends data to a server accessible by law-enforcement agencies.