Road A1A, which ran immediately in front of the AFTAC Headquarters building. A1A was later reopened to two-lane traffic with car inspections, followed by two-lane traffic without inspections until a barrier was constructed in front of the building and the building reinforced with steel and concrete with the windows sealed. In February 2005, the Patrick AFB Officers Club was destroyed by an accidental fire. In 2010, the Air Force announced its intention to replace the existing AFTAC building front State Road A1A with a new facility that would cost in the range from $100 to $200 million. At the time of this announcement, this constituted the largest single military construction (MILCON) project in the United States for the Air Force. Completed in 2014, the new facility is a multistory command and control building with a radiochemistry laboratory, central utility plant and a 600 space parking garage located approximately west of the original AFTAC headquarters building. US Navy Boeing E-6 Mercury aircraft, part of Operation Looking Glass, were sometimes seen at Patrick AFB during the 2010–11 time frame and were often mistaken by onlookers for the previously retired VC-137 Presidential aircraft (i.e. Air Force One), which looks similar. Operational history On 17 May 1950, the base was renamed the "Long Range Proving Ground Base" but three months later was renamed "Patrick Air Force Base", in honor of Major General Mason Patrick. On 3 May 1951, the Long Range Proving Ground Division was assigned to the newly created Air Research and Development Command (ARDC). The next month the division was redesignated the Air Force Missile Test Center (AFMTC). Cost comparison studies done in the early 1950s pointed out the desirability of letting contractors operate the station. The first range contract was signed with Pan American World Services on 31 December 1953. The Air Force Missile Test Center began transferring property and equipment to Pan American World Services at the end of that year. Pan American operated under contract to the Air Force for the next 34 years (until early October 1988). In 1988, the old range contract was divided into the Range Technical Services (RTS) and the Launch Base Services (LBS) contracts. The RTS contract was awarded to Computer Sciences Raytheon (CSR) in June 1988, and the LBS contract was awarded to Pan American World Services (later known as Johnson Controls) in August 1988. The Eastern Range supported a variety of missile