The federal Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC) has closed 350 military installations since 1989. Yet few scholars have addressed the fact that many military bases have a rich public history that should be memorialized and conserved through historic buildings, military sculpture, defense remnants, and civic connections. They have also not considered the challenges between balancing preservation and planning. In this study we evaluate many important preservation and redevelopment issues that arose in the conversion to civilian use of one of the most historic bases in the nation, the San Diego Naval Training Center (NTC). This case study is part of our broader research agenda where we have created a national database of all closed bases in the United States and categorized them based on project type: isolated project, complimentary development, and replacement communities (Ashley & Touchton, 2015).1