Plans for a $32 million National Guard armory – a two-story facility that will sit on 20 acres on the rural edge of Buckley – were made public the morning of June 12.

Buckley Mayor Pat Johnson broke the news during a meeting of the local Chamber of Commerce and confirmed details during a follow-up conversation with The Courier-Herald.

“For the entire Plateau this is just a win, win, win,” Johnson said, noting the new facility will bring 200 construction jobs to the area and, for decades to follow, have hundreds of men and women flocking to the area for mandatory drill weekends. Those weekend warriors are expected to buy gasoline and food and spend money on other services, Johnson said, emphasizing the potential economic benefit to the region.

The existing armory in Buckley will not be impacted by the new facility, Johnson said, as it serves an entirely different purpose. The mayor takes pride in noting Buckley will be the only city in the state with two armories.

Now in the planning stage is a Washington Army National Guard Readiness Center, to be built along the northern edge of Ryan Road, immediately west of the Rainier School campus. Such facilities are specifically designed for men and women of the Guard who are deployed at a moment’s notice, typically in the event of natural disaster.

Johnson noted this puts the Plateau in prime shape should disaster strike – with the Guard’s first responders headquartered in Buckley. When trouble hits, she said, “this is the group that goes.”

Details of the proposed facility are spelled out in a letter to Johnson from Col. Duane L. Coffey, a construction facilities management officer for the Guard.

In his letter, Coffey said plans call for:

• a 50-year lease on acreage owned by the state’s Department of Social and Health Services;

• construction of a main building totaling 97,515 square feet, plus a storage building and parking areas;

• approximately 339 WANG soldiers on site for their monthly “drill weekend, along with 38 active duty and reserve soldiers assigned to Buckley as their permanent duty station;

“Our timeline for this facility is more compressed compared to other facilities due to the nature of the federal funding,” Coffey wrote, noting the facility will be built with $26 million in federal money and the remainder coming from state coffers. It is required that construction be “under contract” by September 2014, with actual construction “soon after that time,” he wrote.

Johnson has heard that such projects typically have a time frame of five to seven years for complete build-out.