Mayor Highlights Long Beach Airport In Impressive Speech

In his first State of the City address, Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia praised Long Beach Airport (LGB) for its award-winning service, as well as its economic impact on the surrounding community.

Click here to see his mention of Long Beach Airport on YouTube.

“Our airport provides direct employment to more than 11,000 jobs and the regional impact of that airport is more than $8 billion,” he said. “That’s our Long Beach Airport.”

Past studies have found that Long Beach Airport has an even greater effect on employment in the greater region, providing as many as 43,000 direct and indirect jobs. They also found that the more than 400 businesses located in the Long Beach Airport Area Complex offer an average salary of $78,000, which is 50 percent higher than the Los Angeles County average. To learn more about the economic impact of Long Beach Airport, visit our economic impact report, here.

Later, the mayor spoke candidly about financial issues facing Long Beach in the coming years, but also pointed to many promising opportunities, including recent development surrounding Long Beach Airport.

“We are seeing positive signs already,” he said. “The Douglas Park development by the airport is moving forward. Mercedes and Hooman Toyota are opening new facilities and more potential investors are in discussion with the City every single day. The Douglas Park project alone is adding more than 1.4 million square feet of new commercial and industrial space, which has brought more than 3,000 new jobs to our city.”

The speech brought praise from many of the guests and elected officials in the audience, including 5th District Councilmember Stacy Rose Mungo, whose district includes Long Beach Airport. Her tweets (here and here) supported the mayor and his view on the positive role that LGB plays in the community.

Congratulations to Mayor Robert Garcia on a fantastic inaugural State of the City address. Go Long Beach!