Action Delayed on Historic Status for Van Nuys Hangars

Debate over the historic value of two hangars at Van Nuys Airport prompted the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission to postpone action Wednesday on a request to preserve the aging structures.

Commission President Armajit Marwah delayed a decision for a month after city Department of Airports officials, who want to raze the hangars, argued the preservation effort is a ploy by the corporate tenant occupying the buildings, Volpar Aircraft Corp., to save millions of dollars in relocation costs.

The accusation was denied by executives of Volpar, which retrofits jet aircraft and is operating under a five-year lease on the site. Volpar officials and Commissioner Helen Madrid-Worthen of Woodland Hills argued that the hangars bore witness to San Fernando Valley aviation history.

The city’s Cultural Heritage Commission agreed to continue the hearing at a meeting May 2. If the hangars are deemed monuments, efforts to demolish them can be delayed up to a year.

The hangars were built in 1943 by the Lockheed Corp. Through the years, they were used in production of B-24 bombers, T-33 training planes, F-94 Starfire fighters and the Army’s Cheyenne helicopters, said Volpar President A.E. Savva. The site was also home to Lockheed’s missile division, and U-2 spy planes were serviced in the hangars, he said.

Sheryl Meshack, an assistant city attorney for the city’s Department of Airports, told commissioners the effort to protect the hangars was a ploy by Volpar to halt department plans to redevelop the property.

John Malloy, a real estate agent for the Airports Department, said Volpar would save “millions of dollars” in relocation costs by staying at the site.

Malloy said granting monument status would keep the department from building other aviation-related structures on the site that could bring the city $300,000 to $750,000 more per year in revenue. The department is seeking bids from about 25 groups interested in leasing and developing the property.

Commissioner Harold Becks said he was “concerned about the ultimate cost to taxpayers” if the hangars were preserved. “It’s a lot of land to put aside . . . when the cultural significance is in doubt,” Becks said.

Savva, whose firm filed an application to preserve the hangars, told commissioners that the Department of Airports said in documents in 1979 that the hangars were historic.

Dan Harnett, an attorney for Volpar, said the five-member commission should remember that old hangars at Santa Monica Airport, formerly the site of a large McDonnell Douglas production plant, had been demolished. “Perhaps a token of that era ought to be preserved,” he said.

Madrid-Worthen said the hangars are a source of aviation history in the San Fernando Valley. She said that in the decades after World War II, aircraft manufacturing grew from a fledgling Valley industry to one that played a large role in the area’s life and economy.

But the architecture of the hangars was not special enough to warrant preservation, Marwah argued. As for history: “Three or four decades is not that old,” he said.

Marwah was reminded by cultural heritage staff and by private citizens that the commission had recently designated a 40-year-old house in Pacific Palisades as a landmark.