{"id":232035,"date":"2016-07-12T06:06:28","date_gmt":"2016-07-11T20:06:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=232035"},"modified":"2016-07-12T06:06:28","modified_gmt":"2016-07-11T20:06:28","slug":"2-8m-expansion-troop-store-gets-underway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/2-8m-expansion-troop-store-gets-underway\/","title":{"rendered":"$2.8M expansion of Troop Store gets underway"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Conceptual<\/a>
Conceptual drawings of the proposed expansion of the Troops Store at the Army Reserve Center in Puerto Rico. (Jon Perez)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Active members of the U.S. Armed Forces, reservists, and veterans including their families will have a bigger and better Troop Store once its $2.8-million expansion and other improvements are completed next year. The store is located along Industrial Drive in Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n

Construction crews had already started work on the site, located just beside the current store. The store remains open with the current facility to be torn down as soon as the new facility takes shape.<\/p>\n

William \u201cRick\u201d Fair said the Troop Store expansion project was long overdue and he is now looking forward for next year\u2019s ribbon cutting. Fair is the area manager for Korea, Guam, and Saipan of the Army & Air Force Exchange Service, an agency that is also under the U.S. Department of Defense.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve done a site visit here and we take into consideration the condition of the building, and it is now 30 years old,\u201d said Fair, who attended yesterday\u2019s groundbreaking ceremony where it was simultaneously held with the Saipan Army Reserve Center\u2019s facility revitalization project.<\/p>\n

\u201cPossibly we\u2019re looking at February or March of next year for the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Once the new facility is completed, we\u2019re ready to better serve those who are in the active duty, retirees, reservists, and veterans including their families,\u201d Fair added.<\/p>\n

U.S. Delegate Gregorio \u201cKilili\u201d Sablan (Ind-MP), in a message read by district director Mike Tenorio, said all those who serve\u2014active, reservists, retirees, and veterans\u2014the Armed Forces need a better facility.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou deserve better. It took some work from the [DoD] to get the project going and we kept pushing for it. We owe all of you for the service that you gave to our nation,\u201d said Sablan, who is in Washington, D.C. since the U.S. House of Representatives is still in session.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe community has outgrown the store and the facility has deteriorated even if renovations were done in 2003. There were also delays like the discovery of World War II ordnances. It took another three years but now the area is safe and the project is ready to go,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Veterans Affairs Office director Gregorio M. Sablan Jr. said, \u201cThe expansion would mean more commodities will be offered to all\u2014veterans, active and reservists, and retirees\u2014and their families.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thirty percent of AAFES\u2019 profit is funding the project, which is part of the non-appropriated funds. The 70 percent goes back to the community where the Troop Store is located for other projects for the people.<\/p>\n

Fair said that Saipan is his third stop after attending store openings in American Samoa and Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. \u201cThis just proves our mission that we\u2019re here to make it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that the Troop Store expansion project on Saipan would not have pushed through without the help of the entire CNMI community. \u201cThe community helped made it happen. This won\u2019t have also pushed through without the support of the CNMI leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new facility, once completed in 2017, will have a total area of 5,000 square feet that is more than four times larger than the current store. It will serve more than 4,000 active, reservists, retirees, veterans, and their families in the CNMI.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will have more space and we can now we can increase the items that we offer and bring new products to see if the people would to buy them. I also heard that people [in the CNMI] love cold beverages, the new store will have more cold storage space,\u201d said Fair.<\/p>\n

He said that AAFES is not always for profit when it comes to building its stores. \u201cWe base our stores in customers and sales. We generate sales to support our operations cost to build stores. But we don\u2019t do everything for profit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do this to serve troops and their families. We fund some stores from those stores who make lots of profit,\u201d said Fair, who added that even other branches of the Armed Forces\u2014Marine Corps, Navy, and Coast Guard\u2014are also welcome to avail the services of the store.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Active members of the U.S. Armed Forces, reservists, and veterans including their families will have…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":232043,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[1011,26,67,12464],"class_list":["post-232035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-aafes","tag-cnmi","tag-people","tag-troop-store"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}