Operation Transformation : Norton AFB’s Civilian Conversion Still Faces Challenges

Every day, Bill Bopf tries to put himself out of business. Despite his best efforts, he’s probably got a decade of work ahead of him.

Bopf is the point man on what’s considered the Inland Empire’s most ambitious development project--the conversion of San Bernardino’s closed Norton Air Force Base into a job-rich center of industry. When the project is complete, Bopf’s job is done.

Hopes were high that an army of employers would march onto the 2,100-acre site shortly after the last troops marched out in 1994. So far, though, just 2,200 of the military’s 10,000 jobs have been replaced. Last week, the conversion effort suffered a serious blow when a developer planning a 4,000-employee trade center missed a deadline to pay a $100,000 deposit to Bopf’s agency.

The $400-million trade complex, once considered the linchpin of the base conversion effort, now appears in serious jeopardy.

“The process needs a real jump- start,” said Swen Larson, mayor of nearby Redlands. Larson’s city bowed out of a coalition of cities organizing base reuse last year because of fears that the effort would be much more expensive than anticipated.

“I don’t want to say the ball has been completely dropped, but I’m not sure it’s really in play either,” he said.

Even some of the public officials pressing forward with Norton conversion efforts are frustrated at the pace of job creation.

“It has been an awfully slow process,” said San Bernardino Mayor Tom Minor, one of the local officials working with Bopf on the project.

The experience in San Bernardino is typical of what many of the 16 major domestic military sites doomed by a base closure committee in 1988 have experienced. And similar transition pains are likely at the 81 additional locations earmarked for closure since then, including 20 in California.

Most locations struggle for years to approach the employment levels the military left behind, said Ben Williams, deputy director of the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research in Sacramento, which is helping coordinate reuse plans at closed military sites around the state.

Clearly, progress at one or two closed sites has been encouraging. The entire 500-acre Sacramento Army Depot, for example, employed fewer than 2,000 soldiers and civilians before closing in 1994. It now accounts for 5,000 jobs as a manufacturing site for Hewlett-Packard.

But the experience at Norton is much more representative, Williams said.

“It’s like building a house one brick at a time,” he said. “I know expectations are high at many locations, but it’s not easy to quickly absorb a base that’s 1,000, 2,000 or even 5,000 acres.”

Many of the bricks that need to be replaced at Norton date back more than five decades.

Beginning in World War II, huge transport aircraft stationed at Norton ferried troops and equipment to conflicts around the globe. As Norton’s military role grew, so did its role in the local economy.

By some estimates, 24,000 jobs owed their existence to the base at its peak in the 1980s in addition to 10,000 direct employees. Norton had a $2-billion economic impact annually--about 4% of the total economy of San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

Since Norton landed on the list of bases to be closed, the people of San Bernardino and surrounding cities have experienced a host of emotions, ranging from gloom to optimism when the conversion appeared ready to take off.

“Now, I think a dose of reality has set in,” said Bopf, executive director of the Inland Valley Development Agency, a coalition of cities overseeing the conversion effort. The community is aware that jobs will be generated, but not nearly as swiftly as anyone would like, he said.

A host of culprits, including environmental problems, complications in getting the land transferred from the military and a sluggish economy, have slowed the process.

But it would be unfair to characterize Norton’s redevelopment effort as a failure.

More than 80 companies or organizations--ranging from a high-tech satellite launcher to Goodwill Industries--have set up on the former base. More than 1.25 million square feet of property have been leased.

Utilities in place since the Truman administration have been replaced. Roads have been widened, and the toxic remnants of decades of solvents and paint dumping are on their way to being cleaned up. In all, more than $120 million in federal and local funds have been spent on resurrecting the site.

That investment has produced dividends in the form of employment. Last month, Santa Barbara Aerospace announced that it would create 200 Norton jobs when it leases a pair of Norton hangars to service and modify wide-body jets this spring.

The hangars previously housed Lockheed Corp., which, in the midst of an aviation downturn in 1994, abandoned its jet refurbishment efforts after a financially disastrous three years at Norton.

A 31-acre entertainment center, scheduled to include a pair of ice rinks, two roller hockey rinks and a virtual reality center, is planned by San Bernardino’s Ming Plaza Development.

A Defense Department accounting center with 300 employees is expected to grow in 1997 toward its eventual total of 700 workers. Several other companies on the site are in the process of expanding.

But the largest project proposed, the $400-million trade center, appears in serious doubt. San Jose businessman John Miskell, who was given an extension until Feb. 3 to come up with the $100,000 deposit, was optimistic about his chances but declined to provide details of the financing.

“If you’d asked me four years ago if I thought we’d be further along, I’d say yes,” said San Bernardino County Supervisor Jerry Eaves. “But considering some of the frustrating delays we’ve had, I’m satisfied with where we are.”

The most frustrating obstacle was hurdled in March 1995 when the Inland Valley Development Agency bought 585 acres of the base from the Air Force for $52 million, clearing the way for tenant recruitment.

Under an unusual Pentagon agreement, the agency put no money down on the purchase. Instead, 40% of the lease payments from tenants will go to the Air Force until the $52 million is paid off. The full amount is expected to be paid within 15 years.

Many observers say a passenger airline is the key to making the base conversion succeed. But several airlines, including Southwest Airlines, have rejected overtures to start service at the airfield.

Despite the setbacks, the task for Bopf and the rest of the base redevelopment team has been made easier by a general upturn in the Inland Empire economy.

Unemployment, in double digits just a couple of years ago, is down to 7.2% in San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

“People can see that we’re moving forward, but they’re realistic about how long this will take,” Bopf said. “There’s no way you can rebuild a base and replace all the jobs in five years. I hope we can do it in 10 years.”

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Jerry Eaves is also referred to as Gerald Eaves or Gerald R. Eaves in other Los Angeles Times stories.

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