Photos: Historic aerospace plant to be turned into ‘creative’ offices in El Segundo

The site off Douglas Street in El Segundo features 550,000 square feet that will be converted into an office campus.

Architect John Wiedner aims to do away with the windowless offices and long, dimly lit hallways found in the old buildings and open the place up.

Real estate developer and Hackman Capital Partners CEO Michael Hackman will spend about $100 million to make over a longtime Northrup Grumman office and manufacturing campus in El Segundo.

Northrop Grumman, once based in Los Angeles but now headquartered in Falls Church, Va., bought the El Segundo properties in 1978.

Northrop Grumman will vacate the largest of the buildings near LAX by the end of 2017, and construction on the new office complex will start in the first quarter of 2018.

The new project will join others in El Segundo competing for tenants seeking creative office space.

The smallest of the buildings is currently used for airplane testing, but the others have classified uses and are off-limits even to landlord Michael Hackman, chief executive of Hackman Capital Partners, and his team.

A replica fighter jet sits in a parking area where real estate developer Hackman Capital Partners will makeover part of the longtime Northrup Grumman campus in El Segundo.