Firm Hired to Study Sites for Terminal at Burbank Airport

With the long-planned site for a new terminal at Burbank Airport eliminated from consideration, airport authorities have commissioned a consulting firm to study four alternative locations.

The Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority on Monday hired Howard Needles Tammen & Bergendoff to look at potential sites around the airport and tell it which warrant further study, said airport spokesman Victor Gill. The study will cost less than $10,000, Gill said.

The sites to be considered are:

A corner of the airport near Clybourn Avenue at the west end of the east-west runway, a location endorsed last week by the Los Angeles City Council on the recommendation of council representatives from the East San Fernando Valley. Homeowner groups in the Valley say that location would lessen aircraft noise over their neighborhoods by routing more takeoffs toward the east.

A tract now occupied by Lockheed Corp., west of Hollywood Way and north of Empire Avenue.

A location east of the Airport Hilton hotel near Thornton Avenue and Ontario Street.

A location in the southwest corner of the airport above Empire Avenue and west of the north-south runway.

William Love, a partner in the consulting firm, wrote the authority that “the study will not provide sufficient data to determine a final site for the terminal,” but will provide commissioners with a direction, possible costs, land requirements, planning design and other factors, Gill said.

“It’s a feasibility study for a feasibility study,” he said.

A new location must be found for the terminal because of the elimination from consideration of the previously chosen site, 38 acres owned by Lockheed Corp. along San Fernando Road on the east side of the north-south runway.

Too Close to Lockheed

Airport officials planned for five years to build a terminal on that land until the federal government ruled earlier this month that it is too close to buildings in which Lockheed engineers work on secret defense projects.

However, a new terminal must be built because of a ruling by the Federal Aviation Administration that the existing terminal, built 55 years ago, is too close to the runway to meet modern safety standards.

Howard Needles Tammen & Bergendoff, a Los Angeles firm, previously did a feasibility study on the Lockheed site, which will be used “for comparison purposes” with the three other sites in the new study, Gill said.