Will the US presence there entirely disappear?

I think helos will stay along with Japanese helos. I'm not 100% sure, but I read a briefing about that.

When are the squadrons moving to Iwakuni?
Is it actually happening?
Are there any sites that I can go read about the move?

I believe they will move in 2014. The Stars & Stripes has had numerous articles about the move.

I wonder how much bigger Iwakuni will get (people-wise). You need lots of people working on those planes. And then they need support people, and those people need....

It's hard to get solid info on this; I can't confirm my previous post about helos and I suspect I'm wrong about the US helos staying there. I'd read a briefing about it once, but now I can't find it anymore.

At any rate, the move is on. 2014 is the scheduled date for the air wing to come down here. Iwakuni is a shared US/JMSDF air field; in 2014 the Japanese assets will be moved to Atsugi. Also BTW, there is a plan to build a commercial air terminal here so that the airfield will be both commercial & military. It'll be kinda nice cuz right now the closest commercial airport is Hiroshima 1 hour away on an expensive toll road.

MCAS Iwakuni has like 2500-3000 active duty. With family members the base population is like 5000-5500. I have heard this will roughly double in 2014. By comparison, Iwakuni town is only 100,000 with no large cities immediately adjacent; it's a vastly different environment from Kanto Plain. Like a whole different Japan.

A large part of the airfield is landfill, recovered from the Seto Inland Sea. In recent years, this filled area has vastly expanded. The new runway is now in place and about to become operational. When that happens, the old runway will shut down to make room for new construction. Basically, the air facilities are moving like 500 meters further out to sea. That, in turn, will make room for more housing and community facilities. The golf course is also going away. The local government has successfully put the kibosh on remote housing areas, so everyone will live on base. There ain't that much room to expand, so it will be a bit crowded on base.

Ok, I found the brief but I'm having trouble displaying the URL. There are some spaces in the URL and they come up as "%20" when it should be a blank space, so the the browser can't find it. Anyway, do a google search for "Industry - Capt. Fuligni" (without the quotes, but with the rest of the punctuation.) Your search results should find a .pdf at the website islandbusinessopportunities.com. Open that .pdf and look at slide #13. This is where I got the idea that the HS squadrons will stay at Atsugi, and JMSDF fixed-wing will move from Iwakuni to Atsugi. A big part of this move is based on construction in Guam and moving lots of forces from Okinawa to Guam. It's immensely complicated & expensive; Japan is paying for a lot of this construction (including that in Guam) so it don't move fast. Hope this helps.

I went to Iwakuni Dec. of 94 or 95. I remember being in a taxi with my parents and we drove across some runway. We had to stop because an F18 Hornet drove in front of us. IT WAS SO @()&)(%^ COOL!!!!

Yeah, this base is pretty funky. There are advantages to being in a small community.