KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany — The massive Kaiserslautern Military Community Center is set to open at Ramstein Air Base in a number of phases starting on July 2, officials said.
Ramstein Tickets and Tours, Outdoor Recreation and the Macaroni Grill will be the first venues to open in the 844,000-square-foot complex, which includes an exchange, food court, lodging facility with about 350 rooms and a four-plex movie theater, said Aaron Schoenfeld, a Ramstein spokesman.
The planned opening comes after years of delays blamed on construction problems and difficulties managing an array of subcontractors. A leaky roof had to be torn out and replaced, there were cracks in the floor, and the kitchen ducts were flammable.
Construction started in 2003 and Air Force officials estimate the price tag at around $170 million.
No dates have been pinned down for the opening of the rest of the center. The facility is one of the biggest U.S. military projects overseas.
"They are still planning. There are a lot of logistics that go into this," Schoenfeld said.
Opening the rest of the KMCC "depends so much on ordering, stocking and moving," he said. "Now that we have control of a good part of the facility, that is speeding up being able to order things."
The KMCC’s first tenants, Outdoor Recreation and RTT, will be closed to accommodate the move during the busy summer travel and outdoor recreation season. But RTT will give its customers a contact number in case they need to make any travel plan changes or anything else travel-related that pops up, said Julie Rich, marketing director for the 435th Services Squadron.
Outdoor Recreation is shutting its doors from June 25 to July 1 and will reopen in the KMCC on July 2, but will offer whatever services it can by phone, Rich and Schoenfeld said. Its hours will be changed to 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays and noon to 6 p.m. Sundays. Outdoor Recreation is not open on Sundays now, and the changes will expand its hours on weekdays and Saturdays.
The Army and Air Force Exchange Service will be close its exchange at Vogelweh and beef up the merchandise inventory at its shoppette to save people who don’t live so close to Ramstein the drive, Schoenfeld said. "Their plan is an overnight swap (from the exchange to the KMCC). They say there will be no disruption in service," Schoenfeld said.
"While it sounds inconvenient [to close the exchange at Vogelweh], with everything here at the KMCC at Ramstein, it is almost the ultimate convenience because it stops all the running around," Schoenfeld said.
Air Force officials said extra security measures have been adopted to ensure that everything goes smoothly and prevent vandalism. Some of the hotel rooms were spray-painted last March. In April 2006, acrylic paint was rolled onto 240 of the rooms.
