KIRO news recently released confidential documents it had uncovered showing that Boeing’s headquarters may not be the only part of the aerospace giant that will fly off to another state.

 Apparently Boeing recently hired one of the world’s leading architectural design firms, Sasaki Associates in San Francisco, to draw up plans for the possible replacement of its Renton 737 plant with high-dollar housing.

Called the “Heartland Project” by Boeing, the plans eliminate the 737 production factories, which employ 5,000 people, and builds in their place a “pedestrian-friendly, waterfront-oriented development” complete with condos, million-dollar homes and strip malls.

The irony of Boeing entering the homebuilding industry, the only industry that has not succumbed to the recession, at a time when Boeing is laying off thousands of aerospace workers, has not gone unnoticed.

The draft “Heartland Project” comes on the heels of the Washington State Legislature granting Boeing a $16-million tax break on its unemployment insurance taxes, financed by a tax increase on builders and other small businesses.