Naval Support Activity marks end of an era in New Orleans

The Times-Picayune ^ | August 12, 2011 | Paul Purpura

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In one of his last ceremonial duties as the Naval Support Activity’s final commanding officer, Capt. Brian Harrison encased the service’s blue flag in a sock-like sleeve Friday morning, bringing to a close a 110-year naval presence in the Crescent City and an end to his three-year tour as skipper of the installation he knew as a child growing up in Algiers.

As a Marine Corps band ensemble played “Auld Lang Syne,’’ a Navy color guard carrying that flag solemnly marched away.

And shortly afterward, Lt. Col. Todd Ford and Sgt. Maj. Chris Bloebaum, commanding officer and the highest-ranking of the enlisted personnel for the new Marine Corps Support Facility, removed the Marine Corps’ colors from an olive green sleeve, ceremonially signifying that the military branch had arrived.

“Today, we celebrate both an ending and a beginning,” said Rear Adm. Townsend “Tim” Alexander, commander of Navy Region Southeast, which includes Naval Support Activity and the Naval Air Station-Joint Reserve Base in Belle Chasse.

Naval Support Activity in recent years was a sleepy administrative base with campuses on both sides of the Mississippi River where 4,500 military personnel and civilians worked and served as the national headquarters for the Navy and Marine Corps reserve. But during the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure round, the base was ordered shuttered. The tenants have since moved to Virginia, Tennessee and Belle Chasse, except for the Marines, who now occupy a 29-acre compound on Opelousas Avenue in Algiers.

The Naval Support Activity’s skeletal staff’s sole mission now is to close the installation Sept. 15. The private HRI/ECC will take over that day to begin the base’s conversion to Federal City, a mixed-use development that will use some of the Navy’s original buildings.

Harrison is the last in a line of 56 officers to command

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Capt. Brian Harrison, center, commanding officer of Naval Support Activity New Orleans, is recognized for his service to the base by Rear Admiral Townsend G. "Tim" Alexander, left, commander of the Navy Region Southeast during the transfer of power ceremony in Algiers on Friday.