For sale: condos built in Kansas missile silos

One of Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback’s pet projects has been keeping rural communities alive by using tax breaks to repopulate areas that are losing residents. The CBS Evening News reported Friday that one real-estate developer is doing his bit to ensure that people moving out to the sticks will have a nifty place to live. CBS reports (with the comically vague “Central Kansas” dateline) that Denver-based developer Larry Hall has poured his life savings into an old nuclear missile silo. Hall’s plans call for seven condo units priced at $2 million each, and, the report says, they will be the only homes in America that can survive a direct nuclear attack.

Hall, who calls the project “survival condo,” told CBS that he has sold only one unit besides his. Hall sounds like he would be an interesting neighbor, if you don’t mind the lack of daylight. When asked why he wants to live in a self-sufficient hole in the Earth, he told CBS, “Terrorists, dirty bomb, pandemic, a comet strike or a meteor strike … It’s not ‘if’ they’re going to happen, it’s ‘when’ they’re going to happen.”