Redstone Arsenal, the military base that occupies a large corner of Madison County, Ala., will grow from “40,000-plus” employees today to nearly 50,000 by 2025, solidifying its position as a “premier federal center of excellence” and key driver of Alabama’s economy, its senior commanding general told a local audience Thursday.

The arsenal now “accounts for 9.8 percent of Alabama’s gross domestic product and 69 percent of the Tennessee Valley’s GDP,” Lt. Gen. Edward Daly told members of the Huntsville-Madison County Chamber of Commerce at an annual update luncheon.

Just over 100,000 people are employed now “on and off the base directly or indirectly supporting the Arsenal’s many missions,” Daley said. That’s a annual injection of $18 billion to the county’s economy and more than $25 billion to the Tennessee Valley economy.

“We are doing this together, ladies and gentlemen,” Daly said.

From its beginnings with the Army Missile Command in the 1950s, the Arsenal is now home to 78 federal agencies, Daly said. Among them are:

· The Space and Missile Defense Command, which is leading development of early warning systems against missile attacks.

· NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, which is developing “the game-changing” Space Launch System to take astronauts back to the moon

· The FBI Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center (TEDAC) that is tracing improvised explosive devices (IEDs) back to bomb-makers. The FBI, which is one of the fast-growing presences on the base today, announced at the briefing that it is bringing 1,350 more employees to Huntsville.

· The Army Materiel Command, the Army’s chief supply and logistics command and one of five four-star commands in the Army.

The Arsenal will not be home to the new Army Futures Command, but Daly said two of eight “cross-functional teams” created to start up the new command are based at the Arsenal.

What is in the future? More growth, Daly said. “We still have opportunity, we still have space and we still have the capacity to grow,” he said. Included will be more growth at the commercial center created when the Arsenal’s main gate off Interstate 565 was moved farther south from the highway.

“We have 4 million square feet of potential leasable space,” Daly said. “We have leased 660,000 square feet to this point, have 304,000 square feet under construction and 225,000 square feet in design…. We are open for business.”

Daley said the Army will give 104 acres of land behind the U.S. Space & Rocket Center on I-565 to the center for public use in January, and he said Arsenal leaders “are exploring ways to provide base access to members of the public so they can take advantage of our premiere recreational facilities, including bowling, golf, fishing and hunting.”

And for the Arsenal’s workforce, Daly said the Army is “looking into scanners and enabling chip entry to reduce wait time ever further” at the main gate.