HUNTSVILLE, AL -- Salaries related to the 2005 BRAC, which involves moving about 4,600 Army and federal jobs to Redstone Arsenal, will generate $460 million in gross domestic product each year statewide, including $375 million in this area.

That assessment of the economic impact of BRAC's operation phase is included in BBVA Compass' second-quarter U.S. Regional Outlook. The publication looks at the U.S. economy and economies of the seven states where the bank operates. It also devotes three pages to the impact of BRAC transfers to Redstone and the spillover effect of transfers to Fort Benning in Columbus, Ga.

The article was written by Ahmad Ijaz and Carolyn Trent of the University of Alabama's Center for Business and Economic Research. The authors also estimate that every $1 billion of BRAC-related contract expenditures in Alabama will produce statewide about $2 billion in state GDP, nearly $500 million in earnings and about 11,000 direct and indirect jobs.

Regional impacts are about $1.8 billion in GDP, $367 million in additional earnings and 7,600 direct and indirect jobs, according to the article.

BRAC is also expected to result in an estimated 5,000 additional Department of Defense contractors, based on data from the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber of Commerce.

During a webcast Tuesday to release the publication's results, Sam Addy, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research, called the Huntsville region a "high-growth area" in terms of population and development.

"Huntsville is a shining star in this recession," he said.

The population of the four-county region - Madison, Limestone, Marshall and Morgan counties - is expected to increase to almost 652,000 in 2015, up 6.2 percent since 2010, and exceed 718,000 by 2030. Employment in the region is forecast to increase 7.3 percent between 2010 and 2015 to about 412,400; jobs will increase another 37.6 percent to nearly 610,000 in 2030.

The high-income BRAC-related jobs should raise average and median incomes for all workers and their families, according to the article.

The BRAC relocations include personnel from the Missile Defense Agency, Army Materiel Command, the Army Security Assistance Command, the 2nd Recruiting Brigade, Aviation Technical Test Center, Rotary Wing Air Platform and Space & Missile Defense Command.

The state and impacted regions, the report noted, will need to invest more resources, principally for housing needs, road and highway networks, schools, medical care and other amenities, to meet the expected demand because of this growth.