Mercedes-Benz vehicles fill up a lot on a 52.2-acre site that by next year will become the automaker’s West Coast campus. Vehicles are shipped in through the Port of Long Beach to be tested at the site and sent out to dealers across the country. The property, which includes two vacant airplane hangars, was once the home of the Boeing 717 manufacturing plant that closed in 2006.
Staff Writer
Mercedes-Benz USA (MBUSA) plans to move into a new West Coast campus near the Long Beach Airport once construction is completed by early 2015, the automaker announced last week. The facility will take up two longstanding, vacant hangars that were last used for airplane manufacturing nearly eight years ago.
The move brings approximately 200 jobs that will be filled by workers from its Irvine and Carson operations, which are closing down, company officials revealed during a groundbreaking ceremony at the Long Beach lot on June 4.
The automaker, which has entered into a 15-year lease with Irvine-based real-estate developer Sares Regis Group, will renovate the existing airplane hangars that total nearly 1.1 million square feet on a 52.2-acre lot.
The historic location at Conant Street and Lakewood Boulevard first opened in 1941 as home to the Douglas Aircraft Company, employing thousands of workers, and later served as the Boeing 717 airline-manufacturing facility until closing in 2006.Â
Boeing sold the property to Sares Regis in 2011 after searching for a buyer for five years, receiving interest from Tesla Motors and a movie studio. Long Beach city officials attempted twice to lure Boeing into reviving commercial-airline manufacturing at the site as the aerospace company plans to close its C-17 plant, which employs about 2,000 on-site workers, by next year.
The site is located across the street from a mixed-use development, known as Pacific Pointe at Douglas Park, property that was also once owned by Boeing.
Dietmar Exler, vice president of sales for New Jersey-based MBUSA, said in a statement that the move to Long Beach was needed in order for the auto manufacturer to continue growing in Southern California, which he called “the car-culture capital of the world” and “one of the largest markets” for the luxury-car brand.
“Hollywood, great weather, a passion for the automobile and continued growth of the luxury market have all contributed to this singular position,” Exler said. “Expanding sales volume necessitates that we have the most efficient and effective structure to support our dealers in providing a world-class customer experience.” Â
Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster, who attended the groundbreaking ceremony with other city officials, applauded the corporation’s move to Long Beach.
Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster (left) and Dietmar Exler, vice president of sales for Mercedes-Benz USA, at a groundbreaking ceremony for the company’s new West Coast campus at Lakewood Boulevard and Conant Street in Long Beach
After being located in Southern California for decades, MBUSA is consolidating its West Coast regional offices in Irvine and its vehicle-preparation center in Carson into one location in Long Beach, where workers will have an opportunity to be transferred. The new facility will also house a learning and performance center to provide training to dealerships and MBUSA employees.
Deidra Wylie, spokesperson for MBUSA, said in an email to the Signal Tribune that the company doesn’t expect to hire new employees, but she added, “That could change if and as our needs change.”
No new sales-tax revenue will come from the move, confirmed Michael Conway, the City’s director of business and property development, in an email. However, he said the new workforce will likely benefit local businesses in town.
“The City’s financial benefit lies more with the 200 middle-income jobs coming to Long Beach and the related disposable income supporting our local retail establishments,” Conway said.
Long Beach will also benefit from a rise in property-tax revenue, of which the City receives approximately 21 percent, he said. Other benefits include having the Western regional office of a “first-class automobile manufacturer” and “the collateral prestige it brings to our city,” Conway said.
He said the City also expects supporting businesses to “start up or grow in response to the many vehicles being processed at the facility,” adding that the occupancy will eliminate a “potentially blighting effect in the airport sub-market due to a longstanding, vacant building.”
Wylie said the company plans to make “significant improvements” to the existing airplane hangars that will serve as the primary use for the company’s vehicle-preparation center, which will be responsible for ensuring Mercedes-Benz vehicles are ready to be delivered to various dealerships throughout the country.
Vehicles will be shipped into the Port of Long Beach by vessels travelling from the company’s various manufacturing plants, including in Germany and South Africa.
Wylie said the vehicle-preparation center, which will be one of three in the United States, including centers in Maryland and Georgia, is expected to serve approximately 70,000 units per year. Employees at the vehicle-preparation center will conduct distribution tasks, such as inventory management, shipping and wholesaling vehicles, in addition to vehicle inspection and factory quality checks.
The West Coast regional offices will support 82 dealerships with sales and fixed operations across 12 states, including Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, Texas and Utah.Â
The office facility will be built with “cutting-edge systems and design,” incorporating “innovative environmental systems,” all in an effort to maintain the company’s “AutoHaus Corp. standards,” Wylie said. The renovated portion of the MBUSA West Coast Campus will be constructed using the same criteria as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-certified buildings, she said. Â
Wylie said the exterior of the building will be “refreshed” but will remain mostly intact, satisfying the City’s requirement that the iconic “Fly DC Jets” sign, a landmark near the airport for more than 50 years, stay in place and operational.
Asked whether there will be an increase in traffic at the site, Conway said the Mercedes-Benz facility is expected to employ far less workers than the Boeing operation, therefore generating less traffic.
“It is not expected that there will be an increase in traffic from the previous use,” he said.
Conway said an environmental-impact report was not required for the project, as the proposed use “fits within the existing zoning for the area.” He said the proposed use does not include any new building square footage and the current property owners demolished a number of smaller outer buildings on the site, reducing the overall footage.
Conway explained that the zoning of the site was changed in 2008 at the request of then property owner Boeing, which was attempting to bring in short-term, temporary uses that would have given the company some economic return on the property while strategizing on a long-term potential. He said the property is currently zoned for “industrial, indoor manufacturing, storage and movie studios.” Trucking is not allowed as a “primary use” on the site, Conway added.
Wylie said new trees, shrubs and drought-tolerant plants will be added throughout the property to help soften and add to the neighboring landscapes. She said the facility is expected to open in the first quarter of 2015.
