Grand Prairie Armed Forces Reserve Complex

Grand Prairie Armed Forces Reserve Complex

Hensley Field
NAS Dallas – 2006 USGS Airphoto
Summary
Airport typePublic
ServesDallas, Texas
Coordinates32°44′24″N 96°58′12″W / 32.74000°N 96.97000°W / 32.74000; -96.97000
Map
  is located in Texas
 
 
Location of Grand Prairie AFRC
Map
Parked cars on the taxiways after closure

The Grand Prairie Armed Forces Reserve Complex or Grand Prairie AFRC (formerly Naval Air Station Dallas or Hensley Field) is a former United States Navy Naval Air Station located on Mountain Creek Lake in southwest Dallas. The installation was established as an Army aviation center, and eventually became home to aviation assets from all the military services.

In December 1998, Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) action decommissioned the naval air station; transferred Carswell AFB to the U.S. Navy and renamed it Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth / Carswell Field; and sent Grand Prairie's Naval Air Reserve, Marine Air Reserve and Texas Air National Guard flying units (wings, groups, squadrons) to Carswell.[1]

The former NAS Dallas was later recommissioned as the Grand Prairie Armed Forces Reserve Complex, with the half that housed the aircraft-related facilities (such as the runway, hangars, etc.) going to the Texas Air National Guard, and the half with most non-aircraft related facilities going to the U.S. Army Reserve and a small area to the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. Vought Aircraft Industries operated a government-owned, contractor-operated (GOCO) plant next to Grand Prairie AFRC until 2014.[2] In 2019 [3] the site was redeveloped into a distribution center for The Home Depot, which opened in 2021.[4]

Soon after the BRAC closure, ownership of 738 acres (299 ha) of the former base was transferred from the U.S. government to the city of Dallas, but plans to redevelop the land for other uses have been stalled since 2001 due to the U.S. Navy's failure to clean up environmental contamination that occurred while the site was used by the military.[5][6]

  1. ^ GlobalSecurity.org – NAS Dallas/Hensley Field. Retrieved 17 November 2006.
  2. ^ Sakelaris, Michael (9 December 2013). "Triumph will close Dallas plant, putting 400 jobs at risk". Dallas Business Journal. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
  3. ^ "Home Depot plans multi-million-square-foot distribution centre in Grand Prairie Texas". Reuters Events. 15 January 2019. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
  4. ^ "Home Depot Opens Massive Dallas Distribution Center". Industrial Distribution. 2 February 2021. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Wilonsky2017 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference dmnAug2020 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).