An iconic neon sign with the phrase “Fly DC Jets
Staff Writer
The new owner of a commercial aircraft-production building that last housed Boeing’s 717 assembly line has agreed to retain the structure’s iconic sign that has been a familiar sight near the Long Beach Airport with the phrase “Fly DC Jets” for 56 years. The developer’s agreements with the City and Boeing, however, aren’t enough for local preservationists, who are pushing for the marker to be designated as an historic landmark.
Most visible at night, the red and blue neon sign that includes the legendary McDonnell Douglas Corporation logo has been a symbol of the bygone years of commercial-aircraft manufacturing in Long Beach, according to historians, since the 1950s. Six years ago, the sign became even more significant when Boeing shuttered its 717-assembly plant, closing the last airline passenger-jet factory in California.
Boeing had taken over the property from McDonnell Douglas Corporation in 1997 after buying out the company and has been trying to sell the site ever since closing the plant’s doors in 2006. Proposals have come and gone, including plans for a movie studio and a Tesla-automobile factory. City officials even tried to entice Boeing to move its 737-MAX production to the building to bring back airline production. But no such luck.
Last year, however, Sares Regis Group, an Irvine-based developer, stepped up to the plate to purchase a majority of Boeing’s vacant land. The developer’s most recent purchase, which closed in October, includes buying 160 acres made up of two 80-acre parcels that consist of two former aircraft-production hangars and Parking Lot D, which once provided offsite parking for the airport.
The aircraft production hangars were built at the outset of World War II by Douglas Aircraft Company, whose workers turned out some 15,000 airplanes. Roger Schaufele, a retired Douglas employee who once worked at the site from the early 1960s to the late 1980s as vice president of engineering, said the Long Beach operation at one point employed about 70,000 people. He said the local workforce first built C-47s, B-17s, A-26s and early A-20s when the plant, once owned by the government, was called the “Arsenal of Defense.”
After the war, the aerospace industry shifted to producing commercial aircraft, he said, adding that the Douglas Company built a series of DC transports. After the company merged to become McDonnell Douglas Corporation in 1967, the line started building MD-80s and later built 717s, a single-aisle version of the DC-9 series 30, once Boeing took over 30 years later. The line built a total of 737 Boeing 717s until the last one rolled off the lot in 2006.
Today, however, all that’s left is the sign that remains the only remnant of commercial-airplane production in the state, Schaufele said. The aerospace workforce in Long Beach has dwindled down to just a few thousand employees who work at Boeing’s C-17-manufacturing plant, which is the last remaining large-scale aircraft-production line in California. “All the production of complete airplanes has kind of gone away,” he said. “[The sign] does have historical significance ! that’s for sure.”
Sares Regis said in a prepared statement that it now plans to develop the 717-hangar property with the potential for about 3.2 million square feet of “office, industrial and retail space.” The recent purchase also completes all land sales at Douglas Park, a 261-acre master-planned property located across Lakewood Boulevard where Sares Regis is developing north and south portions of a 33.6-acre industrial complex known as Pacific Pointe, where seven industrial buildings are to be sold to potential users for corporate-headquarters.
Debby Arkell, spokesperson for Boeing’s Real Property Management Division, said a purchase-and-sale agreement includes a condition that the new owner must come up with a plan to keep the iconic sign displayed if the development calls for the hangars to be demolished. “Should [the new owner] decide to tear those buildings down, [the new owner is] required to work with the city of Long Beach and essentially with Boeing to establish a plan as to what would happen to the sign,” she said. “There will be good care taken of [the sign] if that’s what the buyer chooses to do.”
Just months before the undisclosed sale closed escrow, Long Beach development services department staff worked with Boeing to draft a new permanent zoning ordinance for the area known as PD 19. Derek Burnham, senior planner of Long Beach Development Services Department, said amendments to the ordinance, which were approved by the Long Beach City Council late last year, also included a requirement that the sign “be retained in place, protected and maintained as is.”
The new ordinance describes the sign as a “potential” historic resource since the sign currently has no historic-landmark designation. This fact, however, has worried local preservationists, residents and aerospace employees who fear that there are no protections in place to prevent the sign from being demolished or moved.
“The sign has no protection,” said Sarah Gilbert, commercial chairperson for the modern committee of the Los Angeles Conservancy, which has been leading an effort to preserve the sign with local preservation group Long Beach Heritage. “We often see things fall through the cracks, because [structures] are not correctly designated ! [City officials said] they’ve had a good relationship with the developer, but there’s no guarantee.”
Louise Ivers, an art historian and a board member of Long Beach Heritage, said the agreement between Boeing, the developer and the City to safeguard the sign is good news but added that there are still unanswered questions as to exactly how the sign would be preserved. “If the City has an agreement, we need to find if they really do,” she said. “We would like to see the sign preserved at that site ! It doesn’t have to be on top of the building, [the new owner] can move it someplace on the site.”
Ivers, a member of the Long Beach Cultural Heritage Commission, said historical reports show the sign was built in 1956, the same year the hangar building was constructed. She said any member of the public is able nominate a structure to be designated as a Long Beach historic landmark, as long as the structure is at least 49 years old. The city’s cultural heritage commission would then vote on whether to designate the structure as a city landmark. Currently, there are more than 130 designated landmarks in Long Beach. State and federal landmark designations require other procedures.
But Ivers said granting historical landmark status can be costly and time-consuming. According to city documents, a city historic-landmark nomination costs more than $863, a charge that she said has increased over the years. Ivers said there hasn’t been any landmark nominations submitted in the three years she’s been on the commission.
Gilbert said the fact that the sign hasn’t been given a landmark status yet comes down to a lack of resources. “I don’t think people realize the tools that are available,” she said, adding that speculative plans for the developer “don’t offer the same protection as a landmark designation.”
