A key rationale for Fluor’s move: being close to a major AIRPORT.
“A corporation has to be near a good international airport,” Chief Executive Alan Boeckmann said last week.
Boeckmann dismissed the notion that an El Toro airport would have led Fluor to stay put. But you can’t help but think about what impact an airport at the former Marine base would have had.
Don’t get me wrong,an El Toro airport is dead, no matter how much Los Angeles wants to hope otherwise.
But the legitimate question of air travel in OC remains. I’ve added Fluor to a mental note of cases where an airport was cited in a company move:
When Broadcom earlier this year said it plans to move from the Irvine Spectrum to University Research Park, the chipmaker said being closer to John Wayne Airport was a factor.
If an airport would have taken wings at El Toro, Broadcom said it would have considered locating in a bigger facility right next door.
When South Korean mobile phone maker Pantech & Curitel Communications Inc. set up its U.S. arm in Cypress last year, it cited proximity to Los Angeles International Airport as a deciding factor. The company nixed Irvine,another hub for Asian companies,because of the airport issue.
Maybe El Toro wasn’t the right airport for OC. But in shooting down an airport at the base, OC merely put off what to do about air travel here. Expand John Wayne? Camp Pendleton? Bullet trains to some desert airstrip?
In the meantime, I’ll make a note of any companies that cite the Great Park in real estate moves.
,Michael Lyster
