Former Airport in Glendale, Used in the Early Days of Scheduled Flight, Being Developed Into a Modern Business Center : Air Terminal Takes Off in New Direction

Howard Hughes, Amelia Earhart, Wiley Post, Will Rogers and even Lucky Lindy, Charles Lindbergh, took off from there: the Grand Central Air Terminal in Glendale, where the new Grand Central Business Centre is taking shape.

The new business park, just north of the Golden State and Ventura freeways at Airway and Grandview boulevards, actually contains some old buildings, some built for business tenants in the 1950s, others built as hangars back in the 1920s, when scheduled air travel began in Southern California, and Glendale had one of the first paved airports in the western United States.

Among these older buildings is the old control tower, currently being used for the 100-acre business park’s management office. “If you’ve ever seen the end of ‘Casablanca’ (that famous movie starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman), you’ve seen the terminal tower,” a spokesman for the business center’s developer, the Prudential Leasing & Management Group, said.

Prudential and Property Management Systems, which will supervise development and manage the center, own the property, which will soon have 2 million square feet of business and industrial space. Of that, 95,000 square feet is being built in four new structures, which will replace an old block-long building that was recently demolished.

Cost of construction was estimated at $2.5 million, and completion is scheduled this summer.

Designed by Fields & Silverman AIA of Los Angeles, the new buildings will have a crisp, contemporary look with skylights and extensive use of glass to provide natural light for offices. Truck-well and ground-level loading, wide aisles and large turning areas will facilitate trucking.

Grubb & Ellis Commercial Brokerage Services will handle leasing.