More than 550 people within the Santa Barbara and Goleta communities have signed a petition to save the original two hangars at the Santa Barbara Airport that are nearly 100 years old.
The petition was started by local resident Tom Modugno, who has written about the hangars and more on the Goleta History website, trying to raise awareness and hopefully prompt restoration of the General Western Aero hangars that were built in 1931, but have since been neglected in recent years.
“[The hangars] are the genesis of the Santa Barbara Airport,” Modugno said. “They are the seeds that were planted to start the Santa Barbara Airport.”
Modugno said the hangars have been ignored because they are in a small corner of the airport, but that is also the reason they have survived for so long.
“People don’t know [the history], they just see these dirty old buildings that have been neglected for [several] years,” Modugno said. “Once you know the history, it changes your attitude toward them.”
In the airport’s early days, these hangars supported aircraft manufacturing and commercial operations, the airport’s website states, and in the 1940s they were used as barracks and a mess hall while the Army Corps of Engineers and the Marine Corps began filling in the Goleta Slough and expanding the airport.
“Everybody that finds out about [the two hangars] gets super excited about it, so that’s kind of what motivated me to start a petition and get more people excited about this history,” Modugno told Noozhawk. “I don’t want to be the spearhead of a campaign. I just want to raise awareness. … Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could turn this into a museum or an event center and have a 100-year centennial celebration at the original hangars?”
Airport Director Chris Hastert — who has been in the position for a little more than six months — said the General Western Aero hangars were brought to his attention very early on, and said the item obviously needs attention and a decision needs to be made.
Currently, Hastert said an architect and a historian are working on a project constraints analysis of the hangars, which should determine whether the hangars can be restored or whether they need to be demolished.
“There is no driving recommendation from the airport at this point. We’re not pushing for them to be demolished or do anything different with them,” Hastert said. “So, depending on what the outcome of that report is, if the hangars can be restored and are able to stay there, we’re definitely open to looking at keeping them there and working to have them restored.”
Hastert said that any decisions or recommendations will come down to the outcome of the study, which should be complete within the next couple of weeks.
“I know there are other issues that are concerns over there that I’m not quite as familiar with yet, as far as being in a floodplain and things like that, so I don’t even know, technically, what the allowed uses would be for that facility until we get a little bit further down the road,” Hastert told Noozhawk. “There’s definitely nobody pushing at the airport to have the buildings removed, and I do acknowledge that the longer that they sit out there without anything being done, the worse the condition of them is, so we are looking to find what that solution is as soon as possible.”
More information on the project and studies regarding the two General Western Aero hangars, as well as future information, can be found on the Santa Barbara Airport’s website here, where people can also subscribe to be notified of project updates.
“There’s a world of possibilities. It’s a big, open space over there,” Modugno said. “The airport seems to have a golden opportunity here to do something very unique and beneficial for themselves and for the community.”
