It’s no mystery why Los Angeles Air Force Base has long been considered vulnerable to budget-related closures. Unlike other installations, it has little in the way of novel or irreplaceable facilities.
By contrast, few bases can provide the massive restricted airspace found around the high desert’s Edwards Air Force Base, where advanced jets under development are tested and create massive sonic booms.
“At the end of the day, it’s a collection of office buildings,” David Herbst, vice president of L.A.’s Mercury Air Group and a member of Los Angeles Air Force Base’s lobbying delegation, said of the L.A. base. “There are no runways, no hangars. In the minds of (base realignment and closure, or BRAC) commission members, the ability to move L.A. Air Force Base is pretty easy.”
But the base’s sharp new facilities could be a plus this time around. In 2006, in a landmark public-private deal, the Air Force moved into a futuristic 545,000-square-foot office complex that replaced the base’s half-century-old facilities.
Private developers Kearny Real Estate Co. in Century City and San Francisco’s Catellus Development Corp. built the $115 million complex in exchange for $10 million and nearly 56 acres of vacant or unused Air Force land. The new complex replaced old facilities that some officials have described as a dump.
“It was a bunch of 50- and 60-year-old, low-rise office buildings that were structurally unsafe under current earthquake codes,” said Jeff Dritley, Kearny’s managing partner. “It was a shame to see the men and women of the military officed in facilities like that.”
The Air Force gave up the base’s 39-acre site southeast of El Segundo and Aviation boulevards, and moved to a little-used parcel across the same intersection. The developers, who have already started building condos on the old base, also acquired 13 acres of Air Force land in Lawndale and a 3.7-acre site in Sun Valley.
Base supporters said there might be less stomach to close what amounts to a brand-new base. Though the offices could be leased or sold, such a large amount of vacant space would certainly soften the real estate market and lower asking prices.
Former Rep. Steve Kuykendall, a Long Beach Republican who served one term in Congress and represented the area, authored the legislation in 2000 that authorized the land swap. He said now that the project is complete, the base should have a good chance of staying put.
“I think we’re in a good position right now. When the last BRAC went through, this was in the planning stages,” said Kuykendall, who is running for Congress again, this time in a district that spans Long Beach and Orange County’s Little Saigon. “Now that it’s completely done, the Air Force has a very substantial investment there. It’s boosted itself way up on the list of good things to keep, rather than old things to get rid of.”
