Lockheed Delays Plans to Build R&D; Headquarters

Lockheed Corp., citing uncertainty about upcoming defense budgets, said it deferred plans to build a $60-million headquarters building in Palmdale for its famed Lockheed Advanced Development Co. (LADC) research-and-development group, known as the “Skunk Works.”

The Calabasas-based aerospace and defense concern said it first must know more about “how Congress will deal with the administration’s recent defense budget recommendations” before starting construction.

However, the change will not delay Lockheed’s plan to transfer most of its LADC employees to Palmdale from Burbank, nor will it have any effect on the group’s employment, which is expected to be stable through this year, Lockheed said.

LADC’s employment is now about 4,600, of which two-thirds work in Burbank. But by 1994, Lockheed plans to have all but about 350 of LADC’s workers in Palmdale. Lockheed already has moved most of its aerospace-production workers who were in Burbank to Palmdale or Marietta, Ga.