9:45am | In an age where blue collar jobs are dwindling with every company that opts to outsource, the cities of Downey and Long Beach were understandably giddy with anticipation when electric automaker Tesla Motors expressed interest in establishing a massive production facility in the region. Both cities had available properties that had formerly been used to produce aircraft – Downey’s for NASA, Long Beach’s for Boeing – and would gladly welcome new business to the mostly vacant land.
And while it seemed that Long Beach had recently fallen behind in the running, Downey was convinced that they would be partnering with Tesla. City officials were crushed when the company announced a partnership with Toyota to build cars at a recently-shuttered facility in Fremont.
Predictable though it was, Tesla’s abrupt decision did leave both Downey and Long Beach in a rather sticky situation: what to do with these massive production facilities?
Today, the Press-Telegram’s Paul Eakins seeks to answer that question in this article, speaking to representatives from both facilities and digging up a few updates about what’s next for Downey Studios and the former Boeing site in Long Beach.
So what’s next? Not much.
A movie here, a commercial there. Long Beach is still banking on Long Beach Studios to acquire the land and produce a state-of-the-art movie production facility. Representatives say that the deal is still moving forward, but Eakins uses the word “floundering” to describe the project. The deal fell out of escrow last March, and there have been few updates since.
But for now it’s all speculation. Both facilities are trying to move on, Eakins reports.
You never know. The lbpost.com has been looking for some new office space…