Saturday, March 17, 2018

C-17 Plant--Play It Again, In Long Beach

It is now known that the joint Long Beach-Huntington Beach proposal to Amazon for its second Headquarters offered up the former Boeing C-17 plant as one of three possible sites. Exactly how the city would have done this is unknown, e.g., an outright purchase from Boeing or maybe some kind of lease involving a developer. What is known is that the mayor wants to attract jobs and an aviation museum does not have a lot of paid employees. On the other hand, the American Alliance of Museums cites a study that tourists who visit museums spend 60 %  more than the average leisure tourist, e.g., on food and lodging, which translates into tax revenue for the city. And, a museum is a great way to motivate and inspire young people. Despite this, the city is not interested in studying the feasibility of a new air and space museum on the property, nor asking Boeing to sponsor a study. Long Beach may be promoting other ideas, though, e.g., a movie studio was considered for the former Boeing 717 property when it was sold a few years back. And, there are already a number of studios in the city.

Sunday, January 14, 2018

Las Vegas--Numerous Advantages

While potential sites like Moffett and Alameda in the San Francisco Bay Area will have to contend with rising sea levels (we are taking a 100 year plus view for a museum), Las Vegas will have the opposite problem. Fortunately, a museum is not a big water user. The other major issue in both the Bay Area and the LA/Orange County areas, no surprise here, is the value of real estate. As a result, developers have already taken over former military bases for housing, light commercial use, parks, etc. The Las Vegas/Henderson area still has potential sites available, although locations near an airport are disappearing rapidly. The prospect of a high-speed rail link to SoCal is also improving and will bring in additional visitors. Read more in an article published December 29th in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The web site is: https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/tourism/californian-pushing-aviation-museum-in-southwest-maybe-nevada/