For anybody who has pushed Freeway 101 by Mountain View, California, Hangar One at Moffett Discipline is as acquainted because the mountains within the distance. For a lot of the previous decade, although, it was a hang-out relatively than a landmark – a hulking metal skeleton and reminder of engineering ambition looming over Silicon Valley. That modified final month. On March 20, officers and neighborhood members gathered contained in the absolutely restored hangar to mark a second many had stopped believing would ever come.
Of fog and airships
Hangar One is among the many world’s largest freestanding buildings, protecting eight acres at Moffett Discipline close to Mountain View. Eight soccer fields may match inside its cavernous inside, the place fog generally gathers close to its 198-ft (60-m) excessive ceiling. It measures 1,133 ft (345 m) lengthy and 308 ft (94 m) vast.
In 1933, america Navy constructed it because the West Coast base for the USS Macon, an enormous dirigible measuring 785 ft (239 m) in size. The Macon was a marvel of its period – a “flying plane provider” able to launching smaller planes mid-air. It crashed throughout a storm off Level Sur, California, in 1935, however the hangar constructed for it thrived for many years, housing coaching plane and turning into an iconic fixture of the Bay Space.
NASA
In 1994, the Navy transferred Hangar One to NASA after Moffett Discipline was decommissioned, the place it turned a part of the area company’s Ames Analysis Middle. The plan was to show it right into a thriving area and science heart, however these plans have been quickly derailed.
A poisonous legacy
In 1997, NASA found polychlorinated biphenyls – generally referred to as PCBs – within the heart’s storm drain basin. By 2002, sampling confirmed that the composite materials used for Hangar One’s unique exterior siding was the supply, together with asbestos and lead paint.
The hangar was closed to make use of in 2003. When the Navy proposed tearing it down, a coalition of environmentalists, preservationists and veterans fashioned the Save Hangar One Committee and fought again laborious sufficient to maintain it standing. As an alternative, the Navy stripped the hangar’s exterior and coated the metal body with epoxy – a remediation critics thought of insufficient – abandoning a giant naked skeleton. By 2008, Hangar One was on the Nationwide Belief for Historic Preservation’s record of the 11 most endangered historic locations in america.
The next video provides you background on the undertaking, together with the best way wherein redwood salvaged from the ability was integrated into a brand new soccer stadium for the San Francisco 49ers.
Second Life for Historic Hangar One Wooden
Enter Google
Amid budgetary constraints, NASA lacked the sources to do far more with it. So the company put the complete 1,000-acre Moffett Discipline up for a aggressive lease, with restoration of Hangar One as a situation. Google was the one severe contender. The ensuing 60-year lease gave Google’s actual property subsidiary, Planetary Ventures, management of the airfield – together with three hangars, two runways, and a golf course – in trade for US$1.16 billion in lease and $6.3 million in annual financial savings to NASA. On prime of that, Planetary Ventures dedicated to investing greater than $200 million within the property and creating an academic facility open to the general public.
Regardless of the value tag, the technique is smart when you’re a mega company like Google.
The corporate plans to make use of Moffett Discipline for analysis and improvement in area exploration, aviation, robotics, and different applied sciences. The big enclosed quantity of Hangar One is uniquely suited to testing drones, balloons and large-scale aerial techniques. Add a working airfield 4 miles from Google’s foremost headquarters, on federally owned land no competitor can contact, locked in at a set fee for 60 years, and the restoration begins to look much less like philanthropy and extra like one of many shrewder actual property offers in Silicon Valley historical past.
The restoration, and what comes subsequent
Bodily work started in 2022. The undertaking addressed many years of contamination and structural deterioration whereas preserving the hangar’s historic look, eradicating poisonous supplies, remediating the metal body, and putting in new siding, home windows, and doorways. The brand new cladding used metallic panels with a silver aluminum coloration mirroring the 1934 unique. All work was accomplished on December 1, 2025 and the EPA licensed full remediation earlier this yr.
What occurs contained in the constructing now stays conspicuously unclear. Planetary Ventures has stated solely that it’s “dedicated to innovation.” The neighborhood has pushed for a public museum protecting the historical past of the USS Macon and lighter-than-air flight. Former Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, the hangar’s most vocal political champion, referred to as such a museum a prime precedence. Google’s lease phrases do require an academic facility, however that language leaves hangar-sized room for interpretation.
Sources: Overlook Horizon; The Almanac; San Francisco YIMBY; SpaceNews; Mountain View Voice; NASA
