Eagle plans huge war games center

The Eagle National Security Training Center, south of Venus, could be larger than five Wal-Marts. It will boast a 6,000-foot runway - 750 feet longer than Sebring Regional Airport.

It could 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.

"Development shall be limited to 950,000 square feet of buildings," Eagle proposed, and Highlands County commissioners agreed. The Avon Park Wal-Mart is 190,819 square feet; Lakeshore Mall in Sebring takes up 650,000 square feet.

Permission

All of that is contingent on the approval of Highlands County and the Florida Department of Community Affairs, which is asking for a version about 40 percent smaller than envisioned by Eagle.

On Tuesday morning, the Highlands County commissioners will conduct a public hearing before deciding whether to approve a settlement agreement with DCA, which will allow Eagle to proceed.

Eagle's plans were filed in a four-page summary at the Highlands County Planning Department.

In a separate issue, Eagle's request to change its zoning from agricultural district to agricultural with a planned development district was forwarded Aug. 11 to the commission by the planning and zoning board. On Thursday, commission chair Barbara Stewart said that request had been put off by the requestor. Eagle is represented by Lake Placid attorney Bert Harris III.

Eagle's document describes the property as 7,696 acres, or 12 square miles in the southwest corner of Highlands County. The property is in Highlands County, but borders Glades, DeSoto and Charlotte counties.

Twelve square miles is bigger than the city of Sebring, which takes up 11.1 square miles. Eagle will have its own central water and sewer facilities, 1,000 square feet of security gatehouses, a welcome center, and food and beverage facilities.

"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."

Dissenters

Some area residents are realizing the massive size of the facility.

"This Eagle Training Camp is detrimental to the area," said Nancy Dale, a local historian and author. The center, she said, "threatens one of the last pristine wilderness areas in Florida to be ruined/cemented over, never to return to its natural state.

"The Highlands County commissioners once again are ignoring the public," Dale said, "except when that portion of the public has dollars that they seem to decide should be spent on their own pet projects, without consulting the public interest affected by their decisions."

The project was delayed because at a July 7 public hearing. It was determined all the property owners within a 500-foot radius of the property were not notified - a requirement of county land development regulations.

A Highlands County planning and zoning document also raises the possibility of a public road to the facility: "The possibility of a new north-south vehicular route, aligning with the DeSoto-Highlands County line, was raised with the proposed Blue Head Ranch development, immediately north of this development."

Who's behind it

Seth Ellis, who was presented to the county commission in July 2008, said Thursday he could not comment on the story.

"I really don't have anything to do with that project until they get their funding," Ellis said in a recorded message left on a reporter's phone. "I would call the owner himself, Greg Eagle."

Ellis, the former president and CEO of ICx Digital Infrared Imaging and a partner in Gator Mezzanine Funds, which loans money to mid-sized companies, appeared before the Highlands County commissioners.

Eagle is a Fort Myers commercial real estate broker who gave $750,000 - according to a St. Petersburg Times story - to Floridians for a Better and Brighter Future, which helped elect Charlie Crist in 2008.