Time running out for landmark of wartime Burbank
A copy of this was found in the rubble of Lockheed building #94 during demolition of the A-1 plant in December 1999. Hand written script says "Burbank Daily Review April 1, 1989
By JAXON VAN DERBEKEN, Daily News Staff Writer
BURBANK - Hastily erected during World War II, when it was the largest building at the defense giant's sprawling plant in Burbank, Lockheed's Building 85 never was quite the place to highlight in the company annual report. A huge featureless box covering 20 acres, the dirty gray building was viewed as an eyesore for decades. Company presidents always talked of dumping the Thornton Avenue building, but somehow the vintage warehouse for parts and materials managed to dodge the wrecking ball
Today, Building 85 awaits demolition. The company finally sold the warehouse to the city of Burbank for $20 million last year to make way for an expanded Burbank Airport Hilton. "It was the ugly duckling of the war." Said Ernie Cazis, an industrial engineer at Lockheed who was on hand when the last stored item was heaved out of the building last July. "It had no frills, no trim," Cazis said. "It wasn't supposed to be anything but functional." Cazis said that he will miss the building. "I wrote on the wall next to the elevator 'Farewell Building 85, thanks for contributing to our victory in World War II,'" Cazis said. "It accommodated a great deal of raw materials for P-38's, Hudson bombers - all the war machines." he said.
Building was distribution point
For four decades, the building was a bustling distribution point at Lockheed Aircraft Corp., where everything from sheet metal to aircraft engines, from office furniture to stationary, was stored. During World War II and after, bomber engines shipped into Building 85 would be hauled from the storage building via a now demolished bridge to nearby buildings at Lockheed Plant A-1.
Dick Thornton said that his first job in Lockheed management was supervising the building. On his first day on the job, the employees presented him with a photo of workers in fishing gear, holding poles over a lake. The apparent vacation photo actually was taken inside of the building, which was notorious for its leaky roof. "It had a stigma of always being about ready to be torn down, but it never really was," Thornton said. "It was affectionately referred to as the warehouse or the bone yard - there were lots of disparaging remarks, but none of them really stuck."
In the later years, the company finally re-roofed the building and gave it a fresh coat of Lockheed brown, a light beige paint that covers most of the company's facilities. The upper story of the building was converted in the 1980's into a vast 25,000-square-foot furniture warehouse stocked with 300 desks, 2,500 chairs and hundreds of file cabinets. "It was a catch-all warehouse - we'd get any kind of old leftover furniture or out-of-production aircraft blueprints," said Thornton, whose name bears no relation to Thornton Avenue. Cazis said that the building never was considered glamorous and many normal building standards at Lockheed were waived in the wartime rush to build a receiving station for parts and material. Building 85 was made entirely out of seasoned Douglas fir because of the metal shortage at the time, Cazis said.
No time to make the site level
Part of the building's charm, he added, was that it was built so hastily that there was no time to level the 22-acre site where it was constructed. "The building slopes, " Cazis said. "It was never graded level so everything would roll to the south. You had to watch out that the chair would not roll out from under you or you'd end up on the floor." The chief attraction, he said, was that plenty of parking always was available. Company employees now must walk much farther to work. Lockheed Fire Inspector Paul Riggi, a longtime employee, said the warehouse handled all his fire supplies from hydrants to helmets. "Being a small city as Lockheed is, Building 85 would be like the public service yard," Riggi said.
Last year, the Burbank City Council acting as the city Redevelopment Agency, agreed to buy the building and demolish it, as part of a deal that would help expand the Burbank Airport Hilton. The deal included an offer of $6 million no-interest loan plan to help expand the nearby Burbank Airport Hilton hotel onto the 20-acre site where the building now stands. Last week, the city started reviewing bids and found that the cost to tear down the building would be $1.2 million because of the 250 tons of asbestos and other hazardous materials the building contains, said City Engineer John Mundweil. Hotel developer Lew Wolff plans to use the site to add a second tower of up to 250 hotel rooms and a 28,000-square-foot conference center to his existing 280-room hotel just outside the airport gates at Hollywood Way and Thornton Avenue. The city has agreed to buy the building, on 20 acres of Lockheed Aircraft Corp. land adjacent to the existing Hilton hotel, for $ 1 million an acre, and then resell four to six acres of the property to Wolff.
A copy of this article was found in 1999 on the floor in building #94 at the Lockheed A-1 site on Hollywood Way.
