Environmental Assessment: Proposed Construction of Army and Air Force Exchange Service Shopping Center Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska

The 55th Wing at Offutt Air Force Base OAFB, Nebraska and the Army and Air Force Exchange Service AAFES have initiated a planning program at OAFB to construct a new AAFES shopping center to rectify various functional inadequacies within the existing AAFES and OAFB facilities, which include the existing Base Exchange BX, BX annex, gas station, Class Six, and post office and to expand AAFES services and functions at the shopping center. An expanded facility is needed in the Community Services Zone of OAFB to provide additional and enhanced services to meet the needs of AAFES customers and to be consistent with existing Master Planning documentation for the installation. A siting survey was conducted to locate potential sites for the proposed action. The area of the old SAC Museum was also considered a possible location of the new AAFES shopping center. However, this site was not considered a feasible option because it was not located within the installation Community Center concept and was not consistent with the installation General Plan. Moreover, the SAC Museum alternative is expected to result in more of an impact to the human environment when compared to the proposed action. Specifically, the SAC Museum alternative would result in more construction related impacts and higher construction costs because it would not be able to take advantage of the existing base infrastructure, such as traffic patterns around the community center and truck delivery routes through it. The SAC Museum alternative is also expected to result in more traffic congestion across the base because many of the customers who shop at the commissary would then have to travel across the base to shop at the AAFES shopping center if they were not collocated.