With just three months to go before the Pentagon unveils its new list of military base closings, Charleston leaders hope a Navy engineering unit that employs about 550 civilian workers isn't uprooted in the process.

Officials said concerns over the potential relocation of Naval Facilities Engineering Command's Southern Division from North Charleston to another state are not based on any specific knowledge or inside information about the government's "base realignment and closure," also known as BRAC.

But in recent years there has been talk within the Navy of "co-locating" the so-called NavFac division to a city where a regional commander is stationed.

The most likely contender: Jacksonville, Fla.

"We've heard nothing ominous," stressed Tom Mikolajcik, a retired Air Force brigadier general and a member of Gov. Mark Sanford's base-closure task force. "(But) every once in a while, somebody makes the comment that NavFac ought to be aligned with the regional commander."

However remote the possibility, he and other officials who are lobbying to keep local military installations off the BRAC list are taking the threat seriously.

For instance, at a December meeting with Navy Secretary Gordon England and other high-ranking brass, Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce officials made an unusual, unsolicited gesture: They offered to build a new headquarters building for NavFac Southern Division.

The unit currently rents a privately owned building on Eagle Drive.

"The fact that they're in leased space makes them more vulnerable during BRAC, because anything that's leased is being looked at," Mikolajcik said.

As proposed, the new building would be developed by the Berkeley Charleston Dorchester Council of Governments at the Remount Road section of the Naval Weapons Station in a leaseback deal that would give the Navy an option to own the property. England's office has since said it cannot consider the offer until the BRAC decisions are finalized later this year.

The response was expected, but the region had gotten its point across, Mikolajcik said.

"We wanted our mark on the table that this community was willing to move forward and put the money up to make this happen," he said.

The underlying message was that the sprawling Weapons Station has the room to handle not only additional Navy facilities but other military units as well. Such flexibility, termed "jointness" by the Pentagon, is expected to be a key consideration in the BRAC decision-making process.

"We have tremendous expansion capacity that we can bring other entities here inside the fence line." Mikolajcik said.

NavFac's Southern Division headquarters has played a prominent but low-key role in the local military economy since at least the mid-1960s. The unit now oversees construction, maintenance, building contracts and other real estate issues for the Navy, Air Force and other military and federal government customers in 26 states.

NavFac's public affairs spokesman could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Mikolajcik said he and others are still pushing to ensure the division and the jobs it supports stay in the region. He said the North Charleston office has constantly earned its keep over the years, as demonstrated by its quick response to the Florida hurricanes in 2004.

"Naval Facilities went down there and set up offices to be able to find out and assess the needs," he said. "In record time, it wrote over $100 million worth of contracts."

He said it would be costly and inefficient to uproot the operation to put it "near the fleet."

"BRAC is supposed to save money," Mikolajcik said. "If you're going to move just to move flagpoles, that doesn't make a lot of sense."

By relocating, he said, NavFac also would risk losing experienced engineers and other skilled workers because some would not relocate with the division.

The Pentagon already has acknowledged that it has "concerns about closing or relocating entities that have large numbers of civilian workers," Mikolajcik said.

Whether BRAC affects NavFac's Southern Division or any other military facility in the region will become clearer May 16, when the Department of Defense releases its recommendations of base closings and relocations. The final list is scheduled to be on President Bush's desk by September.