RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany — By January 2005, the 830 military members and civilians from 14 nations who staff NATO’s Allied Air Forces North headquarters will be working in style.

Construction is under way on a $52 million headquarters building on Ramstein Air Base. The plan includes a new operations center and a much-needed parking structure.

“It will be a huge improvement,” said German air force Lt. Col. Walter Schneider, an AIRNORTH spokesman.

Now, the headquarters staff — 790 of them military members — is using 12 buildings or temporary containers on Ramstein.

On Thursday, the AIRNORTH commander, Gen. Gregory S. Martin, presided over the laying of a foundation stone at the new headquarters.

Martin, also commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe, placed a NATO handbook, a commander’s coin and a Rheinland-Pfalz newspaper into a time capsule under the foundation stone of the new headquarters.

“Many millions of people will benefit directly and indirectly from the work that this building allows,” Martin said.

NATO’s northern air operations headquarters has been at Ramstein since 1974. The headquarters staff also runs the Region Air Operations Center, a 24-hours-a-day center that monitors and safeguards the airspace within the AIRNORTH area of responsibility.

AIRNORTH covers Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany, Denmark, Norway, United Kingdom, Poland, Czech Republic and the airspace above the North Sea and the Baltic.

The new headquarters also includes a new operations center that will replace an underground bunker used as a static war headquarters near Pirmasens, Schneider said.

Construction started in January on the five-story, 92,000-square-foot building. It’s scheduled for completion by January 2005.

As if in warning, Fritz Walter of the German state government’s finance office, said: “There will be no extension of this deadline.”

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