Daily News Newspaper, Glendale & Burbank Section, Sept. 11, 2000

By Sylvia L. Oliande, Staff Writer

BURBANK- A dirty, green giant of machinery stands behind a high brick wall, visible for the first time to the cars rushing by on Hollywood Way by Burbank Airport.

The four-story hydro press that once made airplane parts for Lockheed Aircraft is the last piece of equipment standing on the last parcel of land once occupied by aerospace giant Lockheed Martin Corp. It's the last visible reminder of the defense industry that put Burbank on the map.

Harvey E. Roberts, who worked on the press for nearly 40 years making such things as landing gear doors, wings and the windshield for a space shuttle said that when he drives by now, it's as if he's lost an old friend.

"You put your heart and soul in the building, you go there every day, produce things; to see them tear it down, that hurts," said Roberts, a Lockheed hydro-operator from 1947 until his retirement in 1984. "There's all the good times and the headaches, gone. It's kind of hard to swallow." Roberts said the four-story machine looks to him "like a big guard standing around asking, Where'd everything go?"

Where it all went was Palmdale and Marietta, Ga., where Lockheed consolidated its operations.

Burbank has worked to replace the 15,000 well-paying jobs and 5 million square feet of manufacturing and office space lost when Lockheed pulled up stakes in the early 1990s.

The company was found responsible for groundwater contamination caused by its jet plants in Burbank and has spent many millions to clean soil at its sites. In 1996, Lockheed paid $6 million in a secret settlement with more that 1,300 Burbank residents who claimed their health and property were harmed by toxins the aerospace company released. The land the company left behind - this so called A-1 site on the south side of the airport, the B-1 and B-99 site near downtown and the B-6 site on the other side of the airport - is still in various stages of redevelopment.

Lockheed Aircraft Co., founded by brothers Allan and Malcolm Loughhead to make passenger planes, moved to Burbank from Santa Barbara in 1928.

World War II brought a series of contracts for warplanes to the company, which grew as a result from 17,000 employees in 1940 to 91,000 by mid-1943. But its fortunes fell just as quickly, with the number dropping back down to just more than 17,000 employees by 1946.

In the interim, Lockheed manufactured 19,077 military aircraft for the war effort, including the P-38s.

When Roberts signed on to work at Lockheed after his stint in the military, the company was again working for the government supplying the U-2 spy plane, the F-104 Starfighter, the F-117 Nighthawk and the SR-71 Blackbird.

In 1991, Lockheed announced it was leaving Burbank.

Work to bring down the building on the 33 acre A-1 site bounded by Hollywood Way, Empire Avenue and the airport began last spring, and workers continue to clear away the debris.

The Zelman Development Co. plans to build the Burbank Airport Industrial Park there, which will include 6,000 to 7,000 square feet of research and development offices and light industrial businesses.

City officials said construction is expected to begin by the first of the year with a fall 2001 opening.

Zelman also was given approval last week from the City Council to build its Empire Center shopping and office complex on the B-1 and B-99 sites, 103 acres of land closer to downtown at Empire Avenue, Buena Vista Avenue and Victory Place, west of the Golden State Freeway.

And finally the B-6 site has been the subject of a tug-of-war between the city and the Burbank Airport Authority over plans to relocate and expand the existing terminal building.

For Mayor Bill Wiggins, like many longtime Burbank residents, Lockheed was a part of childhood. His family business was established three generations ago to overhaul propeller aircraft for Lockheed and at the Grand Central Airport in Glendale.

"Times change and as a city you have to move forward, "Wiggings said. "Having said that, I do firmly believe that…in some way, we need to memorialize what Burbank was prior to and during WWII and after WWII.

"There were a tremendous amount of aviation products that came out of Burbank, we need to memorialize the aircraft industry that provided Burbank with so many jobs and so much money," he added.

Craig Bullock, chairman of the city's Heritage Commission, said there was concern among some preservationists a few years ago that the buildings themselves should be kept intact. But he said the structures weren't architecturally significant and were too large to be of use to anyone.

Still, he said the removal symbolically closes the door on that chapter of the city. He advocates erecting a physical reminder of those who worked in the defense industry through the architecture of new buildings and with plaques.

"There certainly is a sense of loss and also a sense of excitement of where we're going," Bullock said, of watching the building come down. "It's a new beginning. Burbank is now a studio town and I think we've made an economic recovery. We have a good future ahead, as bright as the one behind us."