Building 80 — Long Beach, California
Economies, like ecosystems, are constantly evolving. And changing economic times require public policy and economic development tools to adapt with them.
Four months ago, business leaders in the City of Long Beach marked the closure of the Boeing’s C-17 Globemaster facility near the Long Beach Airport. The last (at least for now) facility — civilian or military — to be producing complete, new airplanes in the Golden State, the Boeing facility covered 25 acres and employed nearly 2,500 skilled designers, machinists and aircraft technicians.
The closure of the Boeing plant was the coda to a history of aerospace in Southern California that dates back more than 70 years to WWII. Long Beach played a vital role in the “Arsenal for Democracy.” Soon after Pearl Harbor, B-17 bombers and XP-61 Black Widows started rolling off the lines in Long Beach. At one point during the war, Consolidated, the makers of the B-24 Liberator, employed some 160,000 Californians.But globalization, defense cuts, the rise of unmanned aerial vehicles and industry consolidation have winnowed those numbers over the years.
Just a few miles from Boeing’s facility, next to Long Beach City College, stands a collection of huge buildings which used to be the home of McDonnell Douglass Aircraft. Topped buy an neon sign proudly asking America to “Fly DC Jets,” this facility was used to build commercial airliners for more than a generation, but it closed in 2006. Only the sign, still lit at night stands in testiment to the work completed on this site.
The entire facility is has now been re-fitted for a new purpose: building Mercedes Benz cars and trucks. Citing its proximity to its design center, major freeways and one of the West Coast’s largest ports (not to mention the thousands of skilled former aerospace workers who live in the region), Mercedes Benz has invested millions of dollars into the former aircraft facility to convert it to use as its West Coast campus. With some 1,091,754 usable square feet, the facility now houses Mercedes’ Vehicle Preparation Center, Western Region Sales Operations and Mercedes-Benz Academy Offices. Opened in late 2015, Mercedes’ new facility is one of a growing number of smart manufacturing facilities to crop up in the United States, including Tesla’s takeover of the former NUMMI facility in Fremont, California (another OpenCounter city), BMW’s new facilites in Georgia and Toyota’s expanded plants in Mississippi. While their aggregate employment numbers are smaller than the massive workforces required during the 40s, these facilities are highly integrated into global supply chains, use the latest in process automation and generally provide high-wage, high-skill positions for their employees.
Long Beach officials anticipated the changes in the aerospace industry long before McDonnell Douglass and Boeing pulled up their tent spikes. They also knew that those facilities would be perfect targets for other expanding manufactuing businesses.
As early as 1990, City Planners and the town council passed a series of ordinances as part of the Douglass Center Planned Development District that allowed for the adaptive re-use of the facilities to encourage:
“Increased job opportunities within the City; Increased municipal revenue through enhanced sale and property tax base [and the] Development of a high quality, visually attractive office complex”
This document, combined with an agressive economic development program to seek out companies and investors who could see the inherent benfits of doing business in Long Beach. Using public policy, the community was able to adapt to changing economic times and continue to be a leader in US manuacturing and international trade.
Combined with their small business support programs, an active business and development community, a mayor dedicated to developing a strong local tech industry and one of Southern California’s most highly trained workforces, Long Beach is well-positioned for the next half century of economic leadership.
Coincidentally, one of America’s finest soul singers, Bill Withers, used to work in Building 80 at McDonnell Douglas. In 2006, he told American Songwriter, that the sound of the factory, combined with his inability to impress some of his female co-workers, that led to the song’s bassline and cutting lyrics.
Here’s Bill with the last word on this one:
