Plans for Civilian Airport at Norton AFB Kept Alive

Plans to develop an international airport at the closed Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino remained intact Monday after a federal agency offered an upstart homeless services organization only partial use of the base, despite the charity’s request to control all of it for a mammoth food, housing and job employment program.

The 2-year-old Western Eagle Foundation, which provides a food bank for homeless shelters and soup kitchens in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, was told by the federal Department of Health and Human Services that it would be able to use only five warehouses on the 2,100-acre base for a food bank.

The decision allows the San Bernardino International Airport Authority to convert the 51-year-old Air Force facility into a commercial airport and industrial park--a project that civic leaders say will become the crown jewel in the region’s economic renewal efforts.

“We’re extremely pleased and relieved that our plans are intact and that we can have a viable, income-producing airport,” Swen Larson, president of the airport authority, said in an interview from Washington, where he said he hoped to sign a 55-year lease for the base with the Defense Department.

Local business and civic leaders began planning to convert the base when its closure was announced in 1988, but those plans were threatened by Western Eagle’s request this summer to take the base for itself.

Citing federal law that gives qualified homeless organizations priority use of closed military bases, Western Eagle said it could use Norton to feed and house 2,000 homeless people as well as extend job training and employment for as many as 45,000 people through a food-processing tenant.

HHS spokesman Rayford Kytle would not discuss Western Eagle’s shortcomings but said that, in general, organizations are required to show the financial ability and experience to do what they propose.

The federal agency Monday also granted use of two base buildings to Grace Apostolic Church in San Bernardino, which wants to establish a job training and emergency shelter program at Norton.

Western Eagle spokesman Tom Huff said the foundation would appeal the decision and ask Congress for the entire base. “The reasons for disallowing part of our application were weak and unjustified,” Huff said.

Commercial activity at the base, Larson said, will eventually include an air cargo terminal, commercial passenger service, a truck maintenance and cargo transfer center, commercial jet overhaul and maintenance, and an aerospace firm that plans to deploy communication satellites from 747s.

“Norton will be the flagship of the (base) closure fleet,” Larson said.