JBAB IDP and Historic Bolling District Plan

The Schreifer Group led a two-year master planning support project that resulted in a vision plan, an updated Installation Development Plan (IDP), and a Historic Bolling District Plan for Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling (JBAB) in Washington, DC. By virtue of its proximity to the Pentagon and the White House, JBAB supports multiple high-level agency missions and other joint service partners. Thus, JBAB exists in a complex regulatory and oversight environment, given its status as a joint base, with lead service responsibilities recently transferred from Navy to Air Force, its importance to DoD and White House missions, and its situation within the National Capital Region (NCR) and need to comply with National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) oversight processes. These factors result in a challenging project that is a high priority for the Air Force; in the words of 11th Wing commander and installation commander Colonel Michael Zuhlsdorf, this effort is “mission-essential” to support the “non-standard power projection platform” located in the heart of the National Capital Region. The Historic Bolling District Plan was one of the first District Plans to be informed by AFCEC’s District Planning Playbook and applied virtual and in-person approaches, and data- and stakeholder-driven analyses to create a plan that is both ambitious and attainable and provides programmatic flexibility while adhering to a strong vision. Planning actions were developed and evaluated to respond to mission requirements and facilities planning data while supporting an integrated planning and design framework envisioned for the district. The process was designed to bridge the gap between facilities-based analysis and district-scale planning. The resulting plan documents emphasize usability by base planners and ease of integration with the AFCEC Comprehensive Planning Platform (CPP). Kicking off in March 2020, the project was immediately challenged by the COVID-19 crisis and related travel restrictions. The project team worked with project sponsors and the installation to implement a plan for remote stakeholder engagement and multiple virtual workshop sessions that allowed the project to move forward without sacrificing the schedule or the quality of data or stakeholder input received. As travel restrictions lifted, the team began to incorporate in-person activities, while applying lessons learned from virtual techniques.