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Used Missile Base: Rented to Highest Bidder</span>
Eric Bland, Discovery News e-mail
<span style="color: #3366FF">For Rent Feb. 15, 2008 -- Is world domination or surviving a global catastrophe your goal? An impenetrable former military base, now available on eBay, is a good place to start.
For a mere $495 a month, you can rent areas at the former Larson Air Force Base Complex in central Washington state, formerly home to three nuclear-tipped, Titan-class intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Bari Hotchkiss, a self-described business and real estate entrepreneur based in Southern California, currently owns the base. Hotchkiss says he's had the land for "years and years" and that he got it from two guys (now dead) who bought the base in the 1970s when the government first shut it down.
For years he used it as a summer retreat for his family.
"It's the same idea if you lived in a city and took your kids to a summer camp," said Hotchkiss. "Instead, we had a missile base that the kids could take their friends to."
The base is home to more than 47,000 square feet of underground rooms and tunnels. The largest rooms, which once housed the Titan missiles, rise more than 155 feet.
"The kids liked to launch rockets off the top of the missile silos," said Hotchkiss.
Demand has been high. In particular, people are asking for tours of the base, but Hotchkiss isn't sure if that's something he wants to do.
link </span>
Used Missile Base: Rented to Highest Bidder</span>
Eric Bland, Discovery News e-mail
<span style="color: #3366FF">For Rent Feb. 15, 2008 -- Is world domination or surviving a global catastrophe your goal? An impenetrable former military base, now available on eBay, is a good place to start.
For a mere $495 a month, you can rent areas at the former Larson Air Force Base Complex in central Washington state, formerly home to three nuclear-tipped, Titan-class intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Bari Hotchkiss, a self-described business and real estate entrepreneur based in Southern California, currently owns the base. Hotchkiss says he's had the land for "years and years" and that he got it from two guys (now dead) who bought the base in the 1970s when the government first shut it down.
For years he used it as a summer retreat for his family.
"It's the same idea if you lived in a city and took your kids to a summer camp," said Hotchkiss. "Instead, we had a missile base that the kids could take their friends to."
The base is home to more than 47,000 square feet of underground rooms and tunnels. The largest rooms, which once housed the Titan missiles, rise more than 155 feet.
"The kids liked to launch rockets off the top of the missile silos," said Hotchkiss.
Demand has been high. In particular, people are asking for tours of the base, but Hotchkiss isn't sure if that's something he wants to do.
link </span>