Construction worker Alexander Beisenger shoots a layer of soil onto the 400,000-square-foot roof of the Kaiserslautern Military Community Center on Monday. (Ben Bloker / S&S)
Construction worker Alexander Beisenger shoots a layer of soil onto the 400,000-square-foot roof of the Kaiserslautern Military Community Center on Monday. (Ben Bloker / S&S)
Rainer Nastvogel, a stone worker, lays out an intricate star pattern on the center’s floor. The center’s completion date has been delayed until late spring. (Ben Bloker / S&S)
RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany — Poor weather and about $410,000 in vandalism are delaying the opening of Ramstein Air Base’s mammoth mall and hotel complex until late spring, Air Force officials say.
The $200 million building — the military’s largest single construction project under way in the world — was supposed to have opened months ago.
Col. Kurtis Lohide, the 435th Air Base Wing commander, said the Kaiserslautern Military Community Center now is expected to open in late spring of next year. On April 17, vandals apparently took a paint roller to roughly 240 of the 350 rooms in the hotel, causing an estimated $410,000 in damage and setting back the completion about six months.
“It’s hard to attach an exact time frame to that, but it did slow the project down,” Lohide said Monday. “But there are other factors, too.”
Last winter’s blizzard, this summer’s large amount of rainfall and the lack of a prime contractor also may have caused delays in what is easily the most anticipated U.S. military construction project in Europe, he added.
About 50 contractors are constructing the sprawling 844,000-square-foot building, which is across the street from the base terminal and runway.
The lodging portion was scheduled to open this summer. Designers used a special coating called Duraplex on the walls. The product is able to easily withstand scratches and the typical wear and tear to hotel rooms.
But vandals used an acrylic-based paint, forcing builders to cover the rooms with a new fresco coating. Any other paint probably could have simply been removed, said Capt. Andrew Sheehan, the 435th Civil Engineering Squadron’s KMCC project manager.
German police and the Air Force are investigating the incident but have not made any arrests, Lohide said.
Servicemembers and their families have looked forward to the opening of the hotel and mall. Once finished, the complex is expected to be the Air Force’s premier hotel and shopping center and will include a sports bar, food court, four movie theaters and a 30-foot climbing wall that resembles the red rocks of Arizona.
When officials broke ground for the center in December 2004, they said the mall and hotel would open this month. A pictorial display of the project in the base’s passenger terminal still says the center is scheduled to open “early 2006.”
