Fort Gillem Fort Gillem was a United States Army military base located in Forest Park , Georgia , on the southeast edge of Atlanta in Clayton County . Founded in 1941 , it was a satellite installation of nearby Fort McPherson . The base houses different supply and support units , including the U . S . Army Criminal Investigation Laboratory and the 3rd MP Group ( CID ) , both units of the United States Army Criminal Investigation Command . It employs 456 active duty personnel , 1 , 663 Army reservist , and 1 , 667 civilians . In 1973 , its were annexed by Forest Park . The fort was named in the memory of Lieutenant General Alvan Cullom Gillem , Jr . . History . The US Army established Fort Gillem in 1940 with the simultaneous construction of the Atlanta Quartermaster Depot and the Atlanta Ordnance Depot , which were mostly completed by December 1942 . The two installations operated separately until April 1 , 1948 , when consolidated physically and operationally as the ' Atlanta Army Depot ' , a subcommand of the Army Materiel Command . The Atlanta Army Depot was deactivated on June 28 , 1974 . Environmental contamination . Buried landfills have contaminated ground water under neighborhoods north and south of Gillem , and inspectors sampled indoor air early summer 2014 for vapor intrusion . , 40 homes had been tested and 26 homes were found to have elevated levels of benzene and trichlorethylene . The chemicals , which entered the homes through groundwater , are those commonly used to strip metal " per the Georgia Environmental Protection Division . The Army plans to install air ventilation systems in these homes to " eliminate or greatly reduce any risk " . If higher levels are found in any other homes , larger mitigation efforts will be undertaken during which residents would relocate . Base closure and redevelopment . On May 13 , 2005 , the Base Realignment and Closure commission recommended that Fort Gillem , along with Fort McPherson and the Navy Supply Corps School be closed . An exit ceremony was held at Fort Gillem on June 3 , 2011 , and First Army troops stationed there were transferred to the Rock Island Arsenal in Rock Island , Illinois . In 2012 , after five years of negotiations with the Army , the City of Forest Park purchased 1 , 170 acres comprising most of the former Fort Gillem for $ 30 million , and ownership was transferred to the Forest Park / Fort Gillem Implementation Local Redevelopment Authority ( ILRA ) . City officials wanted mixed - use development on the property , but following the housing crash turned their focus to industrial , manufacturing , warehouse and business park development . The only private residences are a 125 - unit development owned by The Park , which has a lease with the Army until 2025 . There are around 165 acres of contaminated groundwater on the site the cleanup of which the Army is responsible for . The clean up of the land was expected to take ten years . The Criminal Investigations Division Crime Lab , a forensic crime laboratory , remains open on a 250 - acre enclave retained by the Army . It was decided to list Fort Gillem on the National Priorities List ( NPL ) of superfunds . On June 3 , the Director of Georgia Department of Natural Resources Environmental Protection Division , 2013 , Judson Turner , requested from USEPA Region IV that the decision be postponed . On May 2 , 2014 officials from the city and the Department of Defense under exclusion of the public held a ceremony at Fort Gillem to commemorate the impending move . The city is partnering with developer Weeks Robinson Properties and hopes it will be booming again , when land re - enters the city and county ’ s tax digest and " companies such as Porsche North America [ are ] moving their headquarters to the Forest Park and Hapeville area " .