Anaheim Considering Mall for Northrop Site
One day after Northrop Corp. announced that its Anaheim plant will be closed, Anaheim officials began plotting ways to convert the Northrop site and adjacent industrial areas into a shopping mall.
If the Northrop land can be consolidated with two other parcels in the area, a developer can build on about 100 acres along the Riverside Freeway at Raymond Avenue, said Al McCord, the city’s economic development manager.
“What we have there . . . is land that fronts on a freeway in Southern California, and God isn’t making any more of that,” McCord said.
Although city officials say they regret that Northrop has to close the Anaheim facility, which was Orange County’s first aerospace plant, they are looking forward to the chance to generate more sales tax money for the city. Industrial plants provide “no real revenue” to Anaheim, McCord said, while retail businesses and auto dealerships are the city’s financial backbone.
Mayor Fred Hunter said the jobs created by a new shopping center can make up for the jobs lost by Northrop’s closure.
“We are very interested in turning gloom and doom into some sunlight,” Hunter said.
To have sufficient space for a modern mall, a developer would have to buy the 56-acre Northrop site, the 18-acre former site of a Laura Scudder manufacturing plant and the 26-acre Anaheim Drive-In, McCord said. Officials of Bower-Perez Co., which owns the Laura Scudder site, and drive-in owner Pacific Theatres were not available for comment.
Anaheim officials said a mall in that area would complement the Orangefair Mall a couple of blocks away in Fullerton. “They are doing a big variety of retail down there,” McCord said. “I would suggest that we get in on some of that stuff.”
While Anaheim officials contemplated development possibilities, Northrop officials released additional details about what lies ahead for the plant’s 1,600 employees. The workers manufacture equipment used to check Navy missiles, and they also make optical and infrared sensors that help pilots and anti-aircraft missile crews shoot down targets.
The plant is to close by the end of next year. Most workers will be offered transfers to Northrop facilities in El Segundo and Hawthorne in Los Angeles County, company spokeswoman Maria Oharenko said. In hopes of persuading workers skeptical about a longer commute, Northrop will offer a two-week tryout, during which the company will provide free van transportation from Anaheim to Los Angeles County or 24 cents a mile in automobile expenses, Oharenko said.
Those employees who do not wish to transfer to Los Angeles County can take a “voluntary layoff,” she said, which may qualify them for state unemployment benefits.
Northrop will lose another 500 positions as a result of a previously announced consolidation of operations at the Hawthorne and Anaheim plants, Oharenko said. That reduction will occur during the next six to eight months, she said.
Departure Will Hurt City
Although the Northrop site may hold economic promise for Anaheim, the aerospace company’s departure will initially hurt the city, said Larry Slagle, president of the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce.
“It’s going to mean fewer jobs and less dollars rolling through our local economy,” Slagle said. Northrop workers patronize local gas stations, restaurants and stores, Slagle said, and “the loss is going to be felt by the total business community.”
Among the first to see that loss has been the Plantation restaurant across the street from Northrop’s main gate on Orangethorpe Avenue.
“It’s going to have a drastic effect on us,” said owner Mike Johnson, who said he had noticed a drop in the restaurant’s lunch crowd as rumors of the plant’s impending closure circulated during the last few months.
“I’m lowering my lunch prices in hopes of getting more people down here,” said Johnson, who estimates that about 20% of his lunch business comes from Northrop. “I guess lots of (Northrop) people are brown-bagging it because of the layoffs.”
