Hangar One redux: A Google restoration plan

$157 million facelift for landmark to include extensive toxic cleanup

MOUNTAIN VIEW >> More than four years after taking over the colossal, stripped-to-itscore Hangar One at Moffett Federal Airfield, Google finally has sketched out a plan for removing the Peninsula landmark’s last toxic remnants so it can be restored and used once again.

When the facelift is complete, the 200-foot-high hangar— an iconic reminder of a bygone era of giant dirigibles that’s plainly visible to thousands of daily commuters on Highway 101 through Mountain View — could be used for a variety of techrelated purposes, although Google has not yet revealed any grand plan.

The proposed cleanup by Google’s subsidiary, Planetary Ventures, is “an important next step in the decade-long effort at the federal level to preserve and rehabilitate this historic landmark at Moffett Field,” Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, said

in a statement.

“From being listed as one of America’s most endangered historic sites in 2008, Hangar One is finally moving toward a sustainable restoration that will protect the structure and ensure the health and safety of Moffett Field and the Bay,” Eshoo said.

Former Mountain View Mayor Lenny Siegel, who convened a committee more than a decade ago to save Hangar One from being razed by the Navy, said the cleanup and restoration proposal is “what the Navy should have done in the first place.”

“I believe that our community should not only support the plan,” Siegel said in a statement. “I think we should thank (Planetary Ventures) for its commitment to restoring this huge, historic structure.”

Planetary Ventures has proposed a wide-ranging cleanup of the old structure’s remaining toxic materials such as paint laced with PCBs, asbestos and lead.

The potential cost could reach $156.8 million, according to a 300-page report prepared for Planetary Ventures by Burlingame-based EKI Environment & Water, a consultant that prepared the remediation and restoration proposal for Hangar One, located at NASA Research Park.

“Future use of the hangar is not known at this time, but could include research and development activities, testing, light assembly and fabrication, office space, and public access for events,” EKI stated in its report.

The 8-acre floor of Hangar One — large enough to accommodate six football fields — is so vast that it’s entirely possible a small office building or other structures could sprout inside.

“Additional facilities may be constructed inside the

hangar to support the primary research and development activities,” according to the EKI report, which was posted on a NASA site.

The 300-page report released last week outlines three options for getting rid of the toxic materials. The first option presented was to do nothing — included merely as a baseline for comparison. The second alternative — estimated to cost $115 million — called for coating the structure with a new protective layer of paint and routine operating and maintenance to ensure the coating holds up.

But EKI recommended the third, most expensive option.

Under this plan, contractors would use a technique called media blasting to remove materials from the steel frame, concrete masonry walls and concrete floors. The contractors also would use chemical stripping, as well as scraping with hand tools. That would then be followed up with

vacuuming and wiping of some surfaces.

“Media blasting is a process in which an abrasive media is introduced into compressed air,” the report states. “The compressed air or abrasive media mixture is then directed through a nozzle at high-velocity towards a desired surface coated with paint or other coatings.”

The $156.8 million price tag includes $85.8 million in construction and capital costs, $54 million for scaffolding around the mammoth structure, and $17 million for seismic upgrades, according to the EKI report.

The U.S. Navy completed Hangar One in 1933 to serve as home to the dirigible USS Macon.

By 1950, Moffett Field had become the largest naval air transport base on the West Coast.

In the 1980s the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency placed the site on the National Priority List for sites of known releases of

hazardous substances, pollutants or contaminants. It was closed as an active military base in 1991 and transferred to NASA.

Following the discovery in 2003 that toxins were leaching from panels covering the hangar, the future of the Depression-era structure remained in limbo for nearly a decade before any action was taken.

Although NASA took over the site in 1994, the federal government deemed the Navy responsible for cleaning it up. In 2011, the Navy spent four months removing the structure’s outside panels, leaving NASA Ames responsible for reskinning the structure.

When NASA first considered the option of razing the structure entirely, preservationists came out in full force against the plan. NASA eventually relented and agreed to retain the structure, but a lack of funding left the steel frame exposed to the elements with no plans for restoration.

In March 2013, the federal government began seeking private bids for the restoration and reuse of the historic hangar, giving supporters a reason to cheer.

Then in March 2015, Google entered a $1.6 billion, 60-year lease with NASA to formally take over the 1,000-acre site with plans to repurpose its three airship hangars as laboratories for developing robots, rovers, drones, internet-carrying balloons and other cutting-edge technology, the company stated at the time.

NASA is holding a public meeting to offer additional information about the proposal and gather feedback at 6 p.m. Aug. 27 at the NASA Ames Conference Center at 500 Severyns Road. The public also is invited to review and send comments on the report to Garrett Michael Turner, NASA Ames Research Center restoration program manager, at garrett.michael.turner@nasa.gov until Sept. 13.