Closure of Hughes Plant in Fullerton to Be Announced : Aerospace: Most of the complex’s 6,800 workers will either be transferred or laid off, informed sources say.

Hughes Aircraft Co. will announce today that its sprawling Fullerton aerospace complex will be effectively shut down over the next two years, with most of the plant’s 6,800 workers either transferred or laid off, according to sources knowledgeable about the plans.

“An awful lot of good people aren’t going to survive this,” said one well-placed source, adding that some workers would be transferred to Hughes sites in El Segundo and Long Beach while others will retire or lose their jobs. The source didn’t know how many layoffs are anticipated at the Fullerton facility, which opened in 1957.

The company will close more than a dozen major buildings at the 350-acre Fullerton complex, leaving open only two leased buildings that hold up to 700 workers, sources said. The vacated buildings and the land, which the company owns, are expected to be sold.

Hughes, a source said, has “the ability to get a premium amount of money for that land.”

A sale offers Hughes two tempting benefits: to consolidate operations amid continuing defense cutbacks and to sell a prime piece of real estate in Fullerton valued at more than $75 million. All that Hughes would retain there are the leased Buildings 675 and 676, on the east side of the complex, sources said.

The venerable aerospace giant manufactures ship-based radar, air traffic control equipment and large-scale air-defense systems. The decision to close the Fullerton plant is part of a companywide reorganization that will involve the closure of another, still-undisclosed facility in Southern California, according to a source.

After four months of secrecy and speculation, the announcement will cap an anxious wait for workers, local officials and business leaders who had lobbied Hughes to keep open the city’s largest employer, which generates millions of dollars in tax revenue and paychecks. Economic losses from the closure are expected to ripple across the entire county.

“It’s what we feared,” Frank M. Reid, executive vice president of the Fullerton Chamber of Commerce, said after learning about the pending announcement. “It’s their business decision and it’s one they had to make. We’re going to miss them.”

From local eateries and car dealerships to Hughes’ sprawling complex, the city of Fullerton was bracing for the announcement.

Though the company’s plans remained largely under wraps to Hughes employees and local officials, signs were emerging that the news would be bad. Fullerton officials were scheduled to meet with Hughes executives following a scheduled 10 a.m. announcement to employees--a private session seen as an indication that work at the plant will be significantly scaled back or shut down entirely.

Company officials had asked Fullerton police to send an officer to monitor response to the announcement, to be delivered by Hughes Chairman C. Michael Armstrong over closed-circuit television to plants here, in El Segundo and Long Beach, where cutbacks were also feared. Police said the action was merely a precaution.

The site was all but deserted Sunday, and several workers contacted said the company had given them no hint what its verdict would be.

Lary D. Smith, a business area manager and nine-year Hughes employee, said he would be relieved at whatever the company announced today.

“A lot of people just want to know so they can get on with their lives. Everything’s been on hold, it’s been an anxious period,” he said Sunday as he headed into Building 600, the oldest on the complex. The Fullerton resident said he was prepared for the news either way: “I’ll work wherever I’m needed.”

Fullerton City Council members and business leaders, who had lobbied Hughes officials in recent months to keep the defense electronics facility open, held out hope for the best, but already sounded resigned to the worst.

“People around town have talked about it,” said Councilman Chris Norby. “But there’s a sense it’s like the weather--it’s either going to happen or it’s not. There’s nothing you can do about it.”

Others were already contemplating the effects of a plant closing in a community where Hughes has been an economic engine, a major donor for local charities and had a reassuring presence.

“If the plant closes, it’s going to really hurt. This is going to really hurt all of Fullerton,” said Dorothy Petsas, co-owner of the Sunny Hills Cafe, a local restaurant that daily serves lunch to about 50 Hughes employees.

Rumors about the plant’s future have swirled like milkshakes at the restaurant, which has already felt the effects of previous cutbacks at the plant. Diners no longer have to wait in line for tables, one result of cuts in the Hughes work force that has gone from a high of about 15,000 in the mid-1980s to 6,800 now. About 800 of those live in Fullerton, said Mayor A.B. (Buck) Catlin, himself a former Hughes engineer.

Babington Rice, a sales manager at a local Buick-GMC dealership, was keeping a watchful eye on developments at the aerospace plant. Employees at Hughes, which is owned by General Motors, are among the firm’s best customers.

“Most of them are under the impression that it’s going to close. I’m hoping they’ll keep it open and consolidate some plants into this one,” Rice said Sunday.

Besides the 3-million-square-foot Fullerton plant, Hughes has two complexes in El Segundo--with 7,800 employees and a combined working area of 3.3 million square feet--and a smaller, leased plant in Long Beach that employs 970 workers. Altogether, the company has 34,000 employees in California.

The four defense facilities considered for consolidation are part of Hughes Aerospace & Electronics Co., a corporate division formed in March. The consolidation, first mentioned to workers in April, reflects the latest efforts by Hughes to simplify its operations in the post-Cold War era. The firm has already shut plants in Canoga Park, San Diego and elsewhere over the past two years, consolidating missile operations and reaping greatly increased profits as a result.

The shutdown of the Fullerton plant would take up to two years in order to allow the company to finish projects already underway.

Although local officials and county business leaders tried to sell Hughes officials on Fullerton’s vastly lower business operating rates, the Fullerton plant was considered vulnerable because of its potential for residential development. Hughes was already seeking permission to develop a portion of its property for houses.

“The business community is understanding of whatever the corporate decision has to be, but of course we want Hughes to remain,” said Terry Kerr, an area manager for Southern California Edison who is president of the Fullerton Chamber of Commerce. “I don’t know what I expect but you have to be prepared.”

Officials said that while a closure would be a severe blow to the local economy, Hughes is not the only big employer in town. Cal State Fullerton, the second-largest employer, has 2,100 workers and Hunt-Wesson Foods Inc. employs 1,800.

“It’s not like a fish-packing plant in Alaska closing and shutting the town down,” Norby said.

“But it’s big. A lot of people in town have worked at Hughes for years,” Norby said. “Growing up in Fullerton, people just said, ‘I work for Hughes.’ You didn’t even have to say what you did.”

Times correspondent Mimi Ko contributed to this story.