FULLERTON : Homes, Shops Could Occupy Hughes Site

If an industrial business cannot be found to occupy the Hughes Aircraft Co. site, the city and company should make the huge parcel available to developers to build up to 1,000 homes, a shopping center, business park and recreation facilities, a panel of experts has recommended.

The panel of experts--made up of real estate specialists, executives from land use, development and planning companies, engineers and architects--spent the past week interviewing about 100 community leaders, Hughes officials and residents, and drafting recommendations for the use of the 350 acres of Hughes land in northwest Fullerton.

They were asked by the city and Hughes to conduct an intensive study of the 2-million-square-foot plant that Hughes--the city’s largest employer-- plans to sell.

The panel offered tips for an advertising campaign to draw businesses and told the city it should offer monetary incentives for them to locate in Fullerton. But panelists also warned that few big industry business owners would do business on a site that is at least 10 to 15 minutes from the nearest freeway.

City and Hughes officials said they will follow the panel’s advice regarding the advertising campaign and seriously consider “Plan B,” opening it up to housing, shopping centers and a business park.

Under Plan B, the homes would be located on 300 acres, with a 10-acre neighborhood retail center, a business park, an equestrian center, horse trails, bicycle trails and a five-acre central park.

“So where’s the vision, where’s the sizzle?” panelist William Kistler, vice president of new business development for the Walt Disney Development Co. in Europe, asked rhetorically.

He answered by saying that Plan B would afford the opportunity to build homes equipped with high technology. Perhaps residences linked by computer could lead to a neighborhood cyberspace club, he said.

“It would put Fullerton on the cutting edge of a significant trend for tomorrow.”