Just a couple of years ago, BRAC – the term for the Base Realignment and Closure process – was a threatening word in Spokane, where the future of Fairchild Air Force Base was at stake. BRAC was a problem. Now that Fairchild has been spared, BRAC is an opportunity.

As the Defense Department proceeds with plans for a $31 million consolidated center at Fairchild in the next three years, the Army Reserve units that will use it prepare to vacate the centers they use in Spokane and Spokane Valley. What will happen to those facilities is yet to be determined, but Joe E. Mann Hall, 4415 N. Market, and Richard H. Walker U.S. Army Reserve Center, 3800 N. Sullivan Road, could be turned over to community organizations that need them.

It’s too bad the decision didn’t happen three years ago when a group of energetic students from a Rogers High School leadership class were deep into a community-mapping exercise. Among their findings, after talking with students and community members and surveying the neighborhood firsthand: Kids in the area need an activity center.

If that sounds predictable and self-serving, be aware that the teens’ effort was modeled closely after five community assets promoted by the nationally respected America’s Promise organization – community qualities that help youngsters make smart decisions and grow into productive adults. One of those assets is a place where structured activities can take place on weekends and after school.

But the teen center dream might just as well have been a wish list after all for a group of students who would be in high school only so long. At that time they had the school’s support and the Spokane city Youth Department’s encouragement, but you don’t buy or build a teen center overnight on the strength of a neighborhood survey.

Mann Hall, just down the street from Hillyard and only blocks away from Rogers, has huge potential for a teen activity center. Completed in 1958, it has served almost half a century as a place for Army Reserve units to meet. It has meeting and classrooms and offices and an open indoor drill area, plus outside grounds spacious enough to store heavy construction equipment.

Of course, the building could be put to other important community purposes, too. Indeed other organizations have shown interest. Meanwhile, the decision-making picture is complicated because the BRAC law presumes the existence of a “local redevelopment agency” – generally the city government – to administer the process. In Spokane and Spokane Valley, the city governments declined to play that role, though, so even if some nonprofit or government agency went to bat for the Rogers kids now, it’s uncertain whom they’d approach.

That problem will be worked out. In the meantime, there’s a community outreach effort to be held soon by the Defense Office of Economic Adjustment, and organizations have three months to make their interest known.

Between the federal law and such practical considerations as who has sufficient resources to make a proposal feasible, it’s premature to say the Rogers youngsters’ idea is the best fit. But it’s not out of line to suggest that in a city that proclaims itself a wonderful spot to raise children, somebody in government or nonprofit work might honor those Rogers students’ initiative by making sure their proposal receives a fair hearing now that it might have at least a prayer.