Real Estate Deal of the Century

I was driving by Air Force plant 42 today. Plant 42 is the Air Force's development flight test facility, or words to that effect, according to the local guide books. Lot's of impressive aircraft have graced the miles of runways that stretch down the center of the facilities. Many of those aircraft were built in the huge hangers of the 'sites' dotted along both sides. Sites that are leased to the big aerospace companies for that purpose; building space shuttles, or stealth planes, or whatever the plane of the day might turn out to be. Make that the plane of tomorrow.

Since the sites are leased out as part of the contracts to whoever is tasked with building stuff there, it was a real surprise to me when I saw a big sign that read:

FOR LEASE:
Site 9, 304 acres with 4 million square feet of improved property...

I might have missed on the numbers, but you get the idea. It was a sign just like you would see in front of a strip mall with a vacancy. I couldn't quite fathom it. Are they expecting the CEO of Lockheed Martin or Northrop Grumman to just drive by and see that? I can see him in his office now; "Bob, could you come in here a minute? I saw this really great deal on some big hangers and stuff. It's really too good to pass. Get down to R&D and see if there's something we could get in there and build. What? Well I was just driving down Avenue P out in Palmdale. You know, by that public golf course, the perfectly flat one without an inch of elevation change."

Riiiiight. People who lease giant airplane manufacturing plants find them by driving around looking at signs. I knew that.