The National Security Agency's Kunia Regional Security Operations Center will be moved out of a World War II-era aircraft assembly plant to a 350,000-square-foot, three-story building at the Naval Computer and Telecommunications Area Master Station, or NCTAMS.

"The positive thing about it (besides) national security, is it keeps jobs in central O'ahu, so we're not moving them to another area, or off O'ahu," said Don Rochon, a spokesman for Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Pacific at Pearl Harbor.

The Navy did not have any information immediately available on the types of jobs that would come with the move. It is not known how many of the positions would be filled by transfers of personnel, or how many would be new jobs. And there was no breakdown on how many jobs would be military and how many civilian.

The move to Wahiawa is yet another sign of the military's increasing emphasis on Hawai'i and the Pacific with the end of the Cold War and increasing concerns about the growing military power of countries like China.

Eight of the Air Force's latest-generation C-17 cargo aircraft are expected to arrive on O'ahu beginning in January; the Army is proceeding with plans for a Stryker brigade based around 300 armored vehicles; and the Navy may base an aircraft carrier strike group and more attack submarine at Pearl Harbor.

The Kunia facility and Joint Intelligence Center, also on O'ahu, are responsible for monitoring hot spots like North Korea, and provide the classified information to U.S. Pacific Command and Special Operations Command, Pacific.

In addition, a draft environmental assessment completed for the information center said the U.S. Army Space Command plans to build a satellite communications control facility with 65 people at NCTAMS, and the Navy proposes to replace the existing communications service center and consolidate functions from other locations, supporting an additional 150 people.

The environmental assessment said the new facilities would be built on the 70-acre NCTAMS site in Wahiawa. A tall, circular antenna array previously decommissioned and known as the "elephant cage" would be demolished along with some outdoor recreation facilities to make way for the new information-gathering center.

Construction on the Kunia center, to be renamed the Hawai'i Regional Security Operations Center, is anticipated to begin in 2007, with occupancy in 2010.

Public comments on the plan will be taken through May 23, but the environmental assessment said a "no-significant-impact" finding is expected.

There will be a traffic increase at NCTAMS, which has about 500 personnel now, Rochon said. A new 1.5-mile access road would connect NCTAMS with Whitmore Avenue. Approximately 35 acres would be acquired for the road and utilities.

Incoming traffic would be opposite the pattern for Whitmore Village residents heading out for work, Rochon added.

Wahiawa Neighborhood Board Vice Chairman Jyun K. Yamamoto said Whitmore Village residents would like to use the planned road as a secondary access road.

Overall, "I don't see much objection" to the NCTAMS plan, Yamamoto said.

The 250,000-square-foot Kunia facility, adjacent to Schofield Barracks, was begun in 1942 following the Pearl Harbor attack. Military officials wanted to have an aircraft assembly plant less vulnerable to enemy attack.

The underground plant, with three floors each the size of a football field, originally was nicknamed "the Hole" and more recently has been known as "the Tunnels."

Schofield Barracks accounts say the $23 million structure was designed for bomber repair and light plane assembly. Access was via a quarter-mile-long tunnel, at the end of which were elevators capable of carrying four 2.5-ton trucks. The complex had a cafeteria that could turn out 6,000 meals a day.

According to the Federation of American Scientists, there is no historical evidence to suggest the field station, completed in late 1944, was ever used for aircraft assembly, but it has had a succession of military tenants including mapmakers and U.S. Pacific Command, based there in the early 1960s.

The vacated Kunia facility would be returned to the Army, the environmental assessment said.

Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-5459.