Grumman Corp.'s giant flight-test facility in Calverton was always corporate and straight laced – a place where Navy and Marine jets were tested for battle. But imagine this place as a spot where marijuana is grown?
Once, Navy F-14 fighters and A-6 bombers roared off its runways, as engineers and corporate managers ran the test numbers. The Calverton field has been closed since 1996, its hangars and buildings empty, rusted and in disrepair. Grumman, formerly Long Island's largest employer and the Navy's major supplier of jets, was sold to Los Angeles-based Northrop Corp. in 1994.
Can at least a part of the Calverton field be developed into something out of yet another entirely different era? A Manhattan-based real-estate company, Signature Partners, thinks so. It is the field's new owner, and as such, has submitted a preliminary application to develop the property as an indoor cannabis grow facility. Signature Properties bought the land at the end of 2025.
To an older generation of Long Islanders, that may raise a lot of eyebrows. But Signature is dead serious. It submitted its application at a meeting of the Pine Barrens Commission earlier this winter. The company needs what is known as a hardship waiver since the property in question is in the Central Pine Barrens Core Preservation Area. The project is considered new development.
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