The Pentagon has set Dec. 1 as the date for states to submit broad plans for a new military base it wants to choose by June 2027, putting the selection process on a fast track after months of internal planning. Dale Marks, who discussed the effort this week in Tampa, Fla., said the next step is a panel that will weigh the bids.
Marks said the project is being described in unusually sweeping terms. “We talk about this as a base, but this is building a city,” he said, adding that the installation is meant to stand up an entirely new operational formation rather than just add another post to an existing map.
The reason the search is drawing attention now is simple: the base is not being sized like a normal facility. The Department of War is eyeing land in the 100,000 to 250,000 acre range for an installation that would house 15,000 to 25,000 active service members and their families and ultimately support about 80,000 to 100,000 people. It is also expected to back autonomous uncrewed strike wings, directed energy and counter drone brigades, hypersonic maneuvering units and SI-driven joint operational task forces.
Pete Hegseth announced the effort in late September, saying the department needed to rapidly establish a new, highly hardened joint military installation within the Homeland. Marks later told the Installation Innovation conference that the goal is to identify, evaluate, select and prepare an optimal site, and that the bids and decision-making process should be as public as possible.
That public framing matters because the department is trying to keep the competition from looking like a political test. States are being asked to make broad submissions, and the panel is expected to weigh more than the four basic requirements alone, including whether a site can support the full population load, the energy and water systems, and the first 24 months of operations. Marks said the base must show within those first 24 months that it can sustain 30 continuous days of full combat sorted generation, a benchmark that goes well beyond a simple land offer.
The land range also leaves room for flexibility. An offer below 100,000 acres would have to prove it can still fit the installation’s housing, resilience and operational needs, while a larger tract would still need to clear the same test of self-sufficiency, hardening and long-term support. In practice, that means the size of the parcel is a starting point, not the finish line, and the panel will likely judge whether a state can deliver the full package rather than the acreage alone.
Marks said there is going to be a panel, and he said he has been told the president might be involved, though he added that the work now is to get the selection criteria in place. That leaves one question open as the Dec. 1 deadline approaches: which states will actually step forward with plans ambitious enough to compete for a base that is meant to function less like a camp and more like a self-sustaining city.
