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A Navy contractor will began tearing the toxic laminate siding off of Moffett Field’s Hangar One on Wednesday, beginning a process that is expected to turn the massive icon into a bare skeleton by early next year.
Scott Andersen, Navy Base Realignment and Closure coordinator for Moffett Field, said in an email that workers were expected to begin to remove siding on the southern end of the hangar Wednesday, working from the top down.
U.K. based Amec Environmental has been contracted by the Navy to do the work, and has already conducted an extensive demolition of the hangar’s interior buildings.
The move comes after years of work by locals community leaders to save the landmark building. While the frame will receive a new coating of paint to help protect it from corrosion, the situation has not pleased historical preservationists, including Bill Wissel, member of the Moffett Field Historical Society.
“Without the protective siding, the skeleton structure will be exposed to the elements and will begin to deteriorate pretty quickly,” Wissel said in email.”That will mean visual blight, safety concerns (birds nesting in the bare frame could be a hazard for planes landing at Moffett). It won’t be long before public opinion shifts and there will be an outcry for complete demolition. That’s the “demolition by neglect” concern that everybody has been voicing for the past few years.”
Funding to re-skin the metal skeleton has yet to be secured. President Obama’s budget proposal for next year includes $32.8 million to allow NASA to restore and reuse the Hangar, which may be cut in another budget battle with Republicans next year.
The Navy has said that it needs to remove the siding now because a temporary coating is failing which could could allow toxics from the hangar to collect in storm drains.
Hangar One preservationists had a small victory in March when the Navy announced that it was working with NASA to keep Hangar One’s unique wire reinforced corrugated windows in place during the siding removal instead of destroying them. But on Tuesday Andersen said that plan is still not set in stone, but should be resolved by the end of the month. The windows were designed to withstand the explosion of a 1930’s airship filled with hydrogen.
The 200-foot-tall hangar was built during the depression to hold the U.S.S. Macon, an airship used by the Navy between 1933 and 1935. The floating aircraft carrier held several small planes that could be deployed from its belly. It crashed off the coast of Point Sur in 1935.
Earlier this month NASA Ames sent out a “Request for Information” to obtain vital information about the contractors who may soon be able to bid on Hangar One’s restoration. Responses are due April 19. NASA wants new metal siding and roof and a restoration of the hangar’s historic windows and estimates the project’s cost at “over $25 million.” A similar Request for Information was sent to contractor last year but received few responses and some were incomplete, NASA officials said.
Wissel said that he remains hopeful.
“Hangar One was assembled by a lot of the same guys who built the Golden Gate Bridge and the Oakland Bay Bridge,”Wissel said. “A lot of the same constructions companies were used. There is as much history in Hangar One as any structure in the bay area, and it can’t be replaced.”
Wissel added that because of the many proposed uses for Hangar One, including an air and space museum, “Hangar One is one of the few that stands a chance of paying for itself.”
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