Clean up decades of accumulated dust and dirt, spread lots of white paint around, put on acres of new rubber skin, and whaddya know? The Akron Airdock looks pretty good these days.

As well it should.

''We've been giving the grand old lady a face-lift,'' said Rick Perez, vice president and general manager at Lockheed Martin's MS2 Defense and Surveillance Systems operations in Akron. ''It's really a pleasure to look out there now.''

A multimillion-dollar cleanup and refurbishing project that got started in late 2003 just completed its first phase.

As a result, the mammoth, 22-story-high building that helped Akron earn the nickname Blimp City appears a lot younger than its 78 years. The structure, built in 1929 and nearly 1,200 feet long, is being prepared for the demands of the 21st century, including the now-delayed, marquee High Altitude Airship project that Lockheed Martin still expects to build here, even though it faces federal funding uncertainties.

Lockheed Martin, which leases the airdock from the Summit County Port Authority, last month completed the cleanup and repainting of the once dark, dirty, dingy and cluttered interior.

The defense contractor is awaiting an OK in the next 30 to 60 days from federal environmental officials before bringing in equipment, machinery and employees to resume production of small tethered blimps called aerostats for the U.S. military. (The company temporarily moved its aerostat operations
to Goodyear's Wingfoot Lake blimp hanger in Suffield Township.)

''It's much, much brighter in there,'' Perez said of the airdock. The fresh coats of paint on the ceiling, walls and flooring — the cavernous inside can hold seven football fields side by side — also encapsulated any hazardous dirt and dust that have lingered in the historic structure over the years. ''It's all very, very clean,'' Perez said.

Work to put a new rubberized skin on the exterior is completed, including replacing 25,000 square feet on the northeast side of the hangar that burned in a highly visible fire in May 2006.

Airship funding delay

The estimated $25 million cleanup project was funded by a combination of public and company money aimed in large part at securing the High Altitude Airship, or HAA, program. Lockheed Martin proposes building massive unmanned airships that can be stationary at a height of 60,000 feet for at least a month and be used for surveillance and communications.

But federal funding priorities have shifted since the $149.2 million project was awarded to Lockheed Martin several years ago. It's unlikely the 400-foot-long prototype will be built and ready to fly before 2010.

The House this week passed a defense-spending authorization bill that includes $2.5 million for the HAA; the bill needs to be reconciled with the Senate and then needs the president's signature.

''It's not a lot of money, but it allows us to continue work on that contract,'' Perez said. ''We are still bullish on the program. . . . We are still under contract for the HAA prototype.''

Airship proponent

Lockheed Martin will work with the Department of Defense to identify funding elsewhere in the 2008 Pentagon budget for the airship, Perez said. The Army, instead of the Missile Defense Agency, has become the primary sponsor of the HAA, he said.

''It deserves to be funded,'' said Loren Thompson, chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute think tank in Arlington, Va., and a defense industry consultant. ''We're not talking big money here.''

The $2.5 million set aside in the defense authorization bill ''must be what the ashtrays cost on the ($339 million) F-22'' stealth fighter, Thompson quipped. He recently wrote a short column calling for support of the airship program.

The High Altitude Airship appears to be a relatively low-cost way to perform much-needed ''persistent surveillance'' when compared with satellites and other systems, Thompson said.

The HAA funding uncertainty has not hurt the Lockheed Martin operations, where more than 500 people work, Perez said.

In any case, Lockheed Martin's Akron offices have the aerostat program that will continue at the airdock and other, unidentified projects that could go ahead in the airdock, Perez said.

Upgrades to continue

And work will continue to upgrade the airdock.

''It makes it obviously a usable facility,'' said Bob Bowman, Akron deputy mayor for economic development.

As the defense funding picture clears up and a better timetable is developed, other major parts of the airdock project will proceed.

The Summit County Port Authority took ownership of the airdock from Lockheed Martin as part of a deal that involved California developer Stu Lichter buying most of the surrounding real estate from the defense contractor. Lichter, who specializes in buying and redeveloping aging industrial sites nationwide, is also the main force behind the $890 million Goodyear headquarters project in East Akron.

The Lockheed Martin deal took the airport-area properties off the company's books and lowered its overhead, thereby making its Akron operations more profitable, said Chris Burnham, port authority executive director, and others.

''The (airdock) is now a public facility,'' Burnham said.

Next improvements

He will be among public officials who plan to meet with Lockheed Martin executives in coming weeks to discuss the next improvements, which include retrofitting the airdock's massive north-end doors so they work properly again.

Once that's done, the rebuilding of the airship mooring pad will begin, at an estimated cost of $8 million, giving Lockheed Martin a completely upgraded facility in which to operate.

The airdock's storied history of lighter-than-air manufacturing looks to continue. And Lockheed Martin likes what it sees in the facility, regardless.

''We see this as part of our business future,'' Perez said.