Downey's space center poised for expansion and it's thinking big

Ben Dickow, left, and Assemblymember Cristina Garcia celebrate $5.8 million in funding recently approved for the Columbia Memorial Space Center. Photo credit: Downey Patriot

When Nader Moghaddam first arrived in Downey in January 2005, he wasn’t initially impressed.

He had just been hired as CEO of Financial Partners Credit Union and Imperial Highway, with its six wide lanes and zero landscaping, resembled a landing strip. There were few good restaurant options.

“My first day in Downey I had lunch at Norm’s,” he recently recalled. “It was the only place that I recognized.”

A lot has changed in those 14 years. Retail centers and restaurants have opened at a torrent pace over the past decade, and Downey invested millions of dollars in the construction of the Columbia Memorial Space Center. It’s a nod to Downey’s cemented place in aerospace history and serves as the nation’s official memorial to the Space Shuttle Columbia, the orbiter lost in 2003, killing seven crew members.

The space center is celebrating its 10th birthday this year and it just received a heck of a present: $5.8 million, courtesy of Assemblymember Cristina Garcia, Gov. Gavin Newsom, and California taxpayers.

Of that money, $800,000 is earmarked for programming and the purchase of a 3D printer and audio/visual system. The remaining funds are allocated for an expansion of the 20,000 sq. ft. space center facility.

Construction is not imminent, however. Officials plan to use the $5 million as seed money as part of a larger capital campaign.

“The biggest question is how we leverage the $5 million to ultimately a different number,” said Moghaddam, who chairs the space center’s board of directors. “Because if you’re just doing a $5 million improvement, it will be very limited. And as much as it would make the center more expansive, it would not be an expansion that is awe-inspiring.”

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