With a workforce of more than 100,000 direct and indirect workers from across north Alabama and middle Tennessee and those direct jobs paying an average of nearly $90,000 per year, Redstone Arsenal is now more than just Huntsville’s economic engine, an arsenal leader said Wednesday.

“We see ourselves as possibly the economic engine here for the Tennessee Valley,” Redstone garrison commander Col. Brian Cozine told local business leaders. More than 1,000 of those workers live in Tennessee with about 500 in Fayetteville alone.

Cozine, whose job is compared to a city mayor, took command of the garrison in August, 2022. He spoke to a briefing for businesses that work with or would like to work with arsenal tenant organizations.

Arsenal growth “is just not stopping,” he said, and his office is working to keep up or ahead of it. “It’s really unique,” Cozine said of the arsenal. The “smartest folks in the country are sitting right here to do a unique mission set for all of our tenants out there.”

To ease the congestion that comes with such growth, Cozine said the garrison recently reopened Gate 10 on Jordan Lane east of main Gate 9. Gate 7 on the arsenal’s west side is another “challenge” that Gate 10′s opening can help, Cozine said. Because of its proximity to the arsenal, the area around Gate 10 has grown rapidly in recent years with new homes and businesses.

Cozine recommended contractors seeking office space consider Redstone Gateway office park, which is technically on the arsenal but is both inside and outside of Gate 9′s fences. The park has grown rapidly to about 2 million square feet of office space and will eventually be 4 million square feet, he said.

Cozine was asked about COVID’s effect on the arsenal’s daily population. “We come on the installation and we don’t see the volume of traffic or personnel in their offices that we had before COVID,” said Joe Fitzgerald, former civilian aide to the secretary of the Army for North Alabama. “It had to have an impact.”

Cozine said it did and the issue of in-person or telework “is still being discussed and worked out.” The arsenal is allowing its tenant organizations to “figure out what their workforce requirements are going to be, whether or not they choose to stay teleworking….”

Cozine was asked if the base might add diesel fuel stations and he said probably not. It is sticking with regular gas but planning for a growing use of electric vehicles, he said.

“The Army is working on changing their non-tactical fleet, mostly our pickup trucks and cars, into electrical vehicles,” Cozine said. “There’s an initiative that will take place over the next few years and where we are in that process at Redstone is we’ve gotten only eight vehicles so far.”

Cozine said the garrison knows some tenants are using electric vehicles, but he isn’t sure how many or who they are. “The challenge will be about how we can meet the demand of charging those vehicles,” he said.

The base does have seven solar-powered charging stations set to get started, he said. “We do see that as an Army initiative,” he said.