Douglas Plans Office Complex to Help Fulfill Space Contract

McDonnell Douglas, flush with its new $1.9-billion space station contract, is planning to build a 12-story, twin-towered office complex at its sprawling Huntington Beach manufacturing site to house an anticipated 2,000 new employees.

Thursday, the project received a giant boost when the Huntington Beach Planning Department issued a report recommending approval for what is expected to be the largest office complex in the city’s history.

“Now that McDonnell Douglas has the space station contract, they need to add on (at the Huntington Beach astronautics facility),” said Mike Adams, director of planning for Huntington Beach, in announcing that his staff has concluded that the project should go forward.

The project, which will be aired publicly on Tuesday, is expected to draw some opposition from residents concerned about potential traffic congestion on surface streets and freeways.

Buildings Described

The MDC (McDonnell Douglas Corp.) Huntington Beach Office Park, as it will be known, is envisioned as a massive, 605,000-square-foot complex in modernistic blue glaze and contrasting spandrels consisting of two towers, one 12 stories high and the other reaching 8 stories, according to the staff report. Plans also call for two restaurants and a retail store.

The office complex will bring 2,102 new jobs to what is now a vacant 18-acre site on the corner of Bolsa Avenue and Bolsa Chica Street in Huntington Beach, according to the staff report. This will bring the total number of McDonnell Douglas employees working at its astronautics facility to 9,252 from the present contingent of 7,600, the report said.

The office complex will not directly affect residential areas because it is located in a light industrial area on a portion of a 250-acre site owned by McDonnell Douglas, said Gail O’Brien, a planning staff member who helped prepare the staff report and the accompanying environmental impact statement.

But the office complex could create massive traffic jams on surface streets in Huntington Beach and neighboring Westminister, authorities say, and it could snarl rush hour traffic on the Garden Grove and San Diego Freeways.

These concerns will be thrashed out at Tuesday’s meeting of the Huntington Beach Planning Commission before it votes on whether to approve the proposal, Adams said.

McDonnell Douglas spokesmen could not be reached for comment Thursday. But Adams said: “Any development that intensifies the number of people and cars is controversial in a county where the slow-growth movement is growing.

“But this project will only bring McDonnell Douglas back to what its working population was back in 1969, when they had about 9,300.”

The staff report says that more lanes at intersections, better traffic light coordination and more lanes for freeway on- and off-ramps will eliminate most of these problems, if not all.

Spokesmen for the City of Westminister and the state Department of Transportation said Thursday that they had some concerns about traffic that may result from the office complex. But they said they do not object to the project because they believe these problems can be worked out.

But Tom Harman, president of Huntington Beach Tomorrow, a 500-member citizens group which has been at the forefront of the city’s slow-growth forces, said he is not convinced that the staff’s report has adequately addressed traffic concerns.

“We’re concerned about the traffic on Bolsa Chica,” Harman said. “And we’re particularly worried because (the project) is on the boundary of Westminister and Huntington Beach. This will require a lot of cooperation between the two cities to avoid traffic tie-ups.”

Harman added: “We just wonder whether Bolsa Chica can handle that kind of traffic. It’s supposed to be the major thoroughfare from the 405 (freeway) down to that development of 5,000 homes they’re planning to build around the Bolsa Chica wetlands. . . . So this project, which sits in the middle, will just bottle up the traffic going to and from the 405.”

Harman raised the concern that the McDonnell Douglas office park might become like Century City in Los Angeles County, with Bolsa Chica Street as Orange County’s version of Santa Monica Boulevard.

“Up there you have Beverly Hills on one end of Santa Monica and West Los Angeles on the other, and right in the middle is this high-rise area--Century City. I don’t think we’re ready for that to happen to our residential areas here.”

Concessions Expected

Harman said his group has not decided whether to oppose the project and will wait to find out what kinds of concessions the Planning Commission is able to get from McDonnell Douglas in the way of street improvements before deciding whether to go on record against the office park when it comes up for City Council approval, should it get over the Planning Commission hurdle.

Because of the indecision of Harman’s group and others, Kent Pierce, chairman of the seven-member Planning Commission, said Thursday that he believes the project will be approved at next week’s meeting.

“I don’t want to predict what we’ll do, but my gut feeling is that the development’s going to be approved,” Pierce said. “I think the infrastructure (of sewers and roads) is available to support the project. I don’t see any serious impediment to our approving it.”

Pierce added: “We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that McDonnell Douglas is one of our larger employers. We should try to help them out because now they’ve got employees scattered about in Huntington Beach and elsewhere. For good business reasons they want to get them under one roof. . . . And it’s going to increase city taxes.”

Income to City Estimated

After costs for police, fire and other city services, the staff report says that the office complex will bring in $118,000 a year more to the city in taxes.

A week ago), the city’s planning staff sent 429 notices, as required by law, to Huntington Beach and Westminster homeowners and businesses around the site informing them of the planned office building and notifying them that they could appear before the Planning Commission to express their opinions about the proposal at Tuesday’s meeting, planning staffer O’Brien said.

The 7 p.m. meeting will be in the City Council Chambers, 2000 Main St.

Times staff writer Nancy Wride contributed to this story.