More Than Poppies Blooming in Antelope Valley

The Antelope Valley is blooming. I’m not referring to the poppies, which still are about a month away from making their stunning annual appearance for the California Poppy Festival. Health care, aerospace and alternative energy in the AV deserve the attention right now. And in this issue, we hope you will sit up and take notice of all the activity going on up there despite the tough economic climate. Driven by a decade-long affordable housing boom, population in the AV soared 21 percent from 2000 to 2011, increasing demand for health care services. Providers are stepping in to fill the need (see Page One), which will be a drastic improvement in the scope of health care available in the region. This summer, Kaiser Permanente will begin construction on a 100,000-square-foot medical office building in Lancaster that will make space for up to 60 specialty physicians ranging from orthopedists to bariatric surgeons. Also this summer, Antelope Valley Hospital plans to break ground on a new comprehensive cancer center. Construction is already underway on the new High Desert Health System Multi-Service Ambulatory Care Center (MAAC). The center will have room for multiple specialty services and primary care, as well as urgent care, radiation and laboratory space. And even though the space shuttle program has ended, commercial aerospace in the AV is alive and well. Famous billionaires are bringing their dreams of exploring space to life by funding massive aerospace development projects in the region. This issue, we tell you about Stratolaunch Systems, founded by billionaire Paul Allen (see Page 5). The company is building two, 90,000-square-foot facilities at the Mojave Air & Space Port. The hangar will house a giant commercial aircraft built to launch space vehicles carrying satellites into orbit. On the alternative energy front, Ecolution plans to build a more than $100 million high-tech automated recycling center in Lancaster, which at full production is expected to generate $6 million a year in revenue for the city. Lancaster is attracting companies in the alternative energy realm left and right. With the goal of being off the grid within the next eight years, the city has attracted solar projects from e-Solar, Beautiful Earth Group, Solar City, and US Topco Energy. I had the pleasure of visiting the Antelope Valley for the first time late last month. Reporter Mark Madler and I attended the 2012 Business Outlook Conference sponsored by the Antelope Valley Board of Trade. It was a long drive up, but it was a gorgeous day and well worth the trip. More than 700 people attended the event, held at the Poppy Pavilion on the AV Fairgrounds. Mark Schniepp, director of California Economic Forecast, said the Antelope Valley economy, which has been lagging behind the state and national economies, will begin to recover this year. There are signs that job growth, home sales and consumer spending will be brighter in 2013, he said. We also heard from a wide range of speakers, including Brig. Gen. Robert C. Nolan, commander of the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards Air Force Base, who talked about the aircraft, both manned and unmanned, undergoing flight testing at the base. Joe Brennan, production operations director of The Spaceship Co., talked about the aircraft that his company is manufacturing by hand at its new $8 million hangar the Mojave Air and Space Port. (We told you about the project in our Oct. 24 edition.) Until I had visited the Antelope Valley, I did not know that the residents there refer to most people in the greater Los Angeles area as living “down below.” Well, I plan to make it back up to the AV for the Poppy Festival next month. I guess you could say visiting the AV is like coming up for air — the region’s natural beauty is evident but so, too, is the region’s take on growth and innovation.