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Highlands Today

Eagle training center price tag: $425 million

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By GARY PINNELL

Highlands Today

Published: August 27, 2009

SEBRING - Eagle National Security Training Center will be "green," the owner promised in an interview Tuesday. Plants and animals will not be harmed at the live-fire facility.

"It's very simple, we just will not allow it. We're there to protect them," said Greg Eagle, a Cape Coral real estate developer.

"We want to be as green as we can be," Eagle said. "Property values will go up. That's the reason why we have 7,700 acres, to provide a buffer. Half of it will never be touched."

On a dozen sections of land in the southeast corner of Highlands County, Eagle is proposing to build a training center for what he calls first responders - police, fire and EMS personnel - plus corporate security personnel and soldiers.

"It's going to be a state-of-the-art security training center," Eagle said. "Everyone needs continuing education."

Opponents are upset because they think it will be a School of the Americas to train foreign and domestic mercenaries, like Blackwater.

"It's not going to be Blackwater, or anything like that. It's not going to be a shoot 'em up situation," Eagle said. "There will be no mercenaries."

The School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Ga., attracted hundreds of protestors, some showing up daily at the gates, according to Internet Web news. Opponents have implied that Highlands County could be letting itself in for that kind of problem.

Background

In documents submitted to the Highlands County Planning Department, Eagle National Security Training Center proposed to build 100,000 square feet of classrooms and administrative buildings, 40,000 square feet of military-style shoot-houses and three five-story training buildings, 1,000 dorms, 25 single-family homes, 100 multi-family apartments, and two 250-feet tall training towers - a total of 950,000 square feet of buildings.

Eagle would have its own central water and sewer facilities, 1,000 square feet of security gatehouses, a welcome center, and food and beverage facilities. Eagle's document describes the property as 7,696 acres, or 12 square miles in the southwest corner of Highlands County. The property borders Glades, DeSoto and Charlotte counties.

For comparison purposes, Avon Park Wal-Mart is 190,819 square feet; Lakeshore Mall takes up 650,000 square feet. Twelve square miles is bigger than the city of Sebring, which takes up 11.1 square miles.

"It is anticipated that the training center will create approximately 250 jobs with a student body of 1,000," Eagle's document says. U.S. military and civilians will be the initial focus, the document said, but "the international market ... will be accepted for training, education and exercises."

Greg Eagle said Eagle National Security Center is not affiliated with a Fort Lauderdale group, Eagle Security Group Inc.

Military involvement

Most of the students will be from local, state and the federal governments, he said.

"We will be training as per their specifications," said Eagle. "We are also going to have mobile training."

Will there be military oversight?

"I'm sure, if they're going to send their soldiers for training, they'll want to give us the recipe," Eagle said.

He will export his training staff to colleges and universities. But, if students want to come to the Eagle site, he said, "We'll have the dorms for them."

Eagle will have financial partners and consultants in what he said will be a $425 million facility. They will include retired U.S. military generals and admirals. He expects the approval to build the center may take from 18 months to three years.

"The financing is not complete yet," Eagle said. "We've spent millions so far."

Although it had a similar name, Eagle said the Grove Tactical Training and Homeland Security Center - proposed three years ago in Charlotte County - will be nothing like the Eagle Center in Highlands County. He didn't want to talk about that project.

Personally, Eagle is a Vietnam-era veteran, but didn't want to talk about that. He is involved with his brothers in Eagle Realty of Southwest Florida. He has built a Wal-Mart, hospitals, shopping centers and residential subdivisions, but nothing people outside his area would know.

His son, Dane Eagle, is the finance director on Gov. Charlie Crist's staff.

The Miami Herald, in a 2008 story, reported Eagle gave $500,000 to a 527, Floridians for a Better and Brighter Future, that would help Crist and oppose Tom Gallagher. The St. Pete Times said he later contributed another $250,000.

However, Eagle said the Crist Administration will not help him, or play any part in Eagle National Security Training Center.

"No, not to my knowledge," Eagle said. "I'm just a businessman trying to do the right thing. We've been doing a lot of study. We've been to Washington, D.C. It will be a good thing for Highlands County."

The center is in a good spot, he said, with its nearness to Southwest Florida International Airport and Orlando International Airport. The families of students may want to visit Disney while they're training, Eagle suggested.

Public hearings set for October

The Highlands County commissioners will hear two items about Eagle National Security Training Center at their Oct. 6 meeting:

•The proposed settlement agreement between Highlands County, the state Department of Community Affairs, and Southern Farms. It would determine what can be built on the 7,696 acres.

•The rezoning of the farm from agricultural to agricultural planned unit.

Commissioner Don Bates, who represents the area around the Eagle center, is meeting with citizens late in September.

Highlands Today reporter Gary Pinnell can be reached at gpinnell@highlandstoday.com or 863-386-5828

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