Few things scream for more attention in the bustling L.A. economy than an idle 160 acres of commercial property.

That’s what the city of Downey has had on its hands, since Boeing Co. moved the last of its operations there to Huntington Beach earlier this year.

Formerly the site of an aerospace industrial plant that at its peak had more than 20,000 employees working on such major undertakings as the Apollo space project, the defunct collection of massive buildings sits in the heart of the city of 102,000 people. It also sits a short distance from five freeways heading in all directions.

“We could fill it up tomorrow we’ve had so many calls from people wanting 200,000 square feet there,” said Darrell George, the city’s director of community development.

Of the 160 acres, the city owns 68 and is buying the remaining 92 from the federal government, which has long owned the property and formerly leased it to Boeing.

Facing strong demand from businesses interested in occupying the space, city leaders are in a position to pick and choose tenants. So instead of rushing to fill up the site, the city hopes to see the first retail components of a massive redevelopment open by spring 2002, less than two years after Boeing took off.

The demand for commercial space is strong throughout the Mid-Cities area, which includes Downey, Paramount and Norwalk. In the second quarter ended June 30, the submarket had a 7.8 percent vacancy rate for industrial space, according to Grubb & Ellis Co. That’s down slightly from 8.1 percent in the year-earlier period, despite a large volume of new space coming onto the market.

In Downey, space-hungry distributors and other companies anxious to move into some of the buildings once used for aircraft assembly are not at the top of Downey officials’ wish list.

Instead, they envision an industrial business park humming with high-tech uses. They also hope to lure film production into one of the vast, empty assembly buildings.

The retail portion would be developed with the goal of maximizing sales tax support to the city, preferably with big-box stores and restaurants. In addition, city officials are in talks with Kaiser Permanente about opening a medical facility on 20 acres of the site.

The city winnowed down a list of interested developers and finally picked Ezralow Co. as master developer of the site.