Guard breaks ground on $37.3M facility to be completed by 2025

HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — A new state-of-the-art facility for the Guam Army National Guard’s 1224th Engineer Support Company will help modernize Guard forces for the defense of the island, according to Brig. Gen. Mike Cruz, adjutant general of the Guam National Guard.

A groundbreaking ceremony was held Friday for the new $37.3 million facility at the Guam National Guard Readiness Center in Barrigada. The building will get the 1224th ESC out of the 40-year-old Fort Juan Muna in Harmon, with its precarious highway access. It will serve as a home for the Guard’s aviation detachment, Cruz said during the ceremony.

With an expected completion date in early 2025, the new facility is the first of a number of construction projects to break ground as the Guard expands its Barrigada property, Cruz told The Guam Daily Post. A new battalion readiness center will be coming soon, which is all part of what Cruz said is a push to modernize and expand the Guard through recruitment so its troops can better defend the island.

The 1224th Engineering Support Company is an important part of that mission, Cruz said, with its vertical construction platoon currently renovating the homeless shelter in Anigua and the horizontal platoon having cleared routes and removed debris after Typhoon Mawar.

“Seventy-nine years ago and two weeks, we celebrated the liberation of our people from then the last great Pacific war. We lost 10% of our population then,” Cruz told the troops gathered for the groundbreaking ceremony. “Our people were murdered, tortured and raped. Unfortunately, the next great Pacific war is more than just rumor. It may be coming.”

Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero appeared for the groundbreaking, remarking that she was proud to be the commander in chief of a force that had grown remarkably since it was first created.

“I remember growing up, I remember when the Guam National Guard started you guys were in Quonset huts right over there, Fort Muna. Look at where we are today. Look at the assets and the inventory here today,” Leon Guerrero said. “What does that say? It says that the Guam National Guard and Air Guard are very important organizations to not just the protection and the safety of our people, but to the community's help in assisting us when we need you.”

According to a news release from the Guard, the facility will be designed to last at least 50 years, with backup emergency power, a flammable materials facility and “sustainable strategies” to minimize energy consumption.