Skyworks Solutions Inc., Orange County’s third largest maker of computer chips by local employee count, appears poised to significantly expand its operations after striking a large lease near its existing Irvine offices.
The $12 billion-valued company (Nasdaq: SWKS), which makes communication chips used in smartphones, tablets, routers, PCs and notebook computers, among other devices, has inked a deal to lease an additional building at UCI Research Park, the 36-building, 2.2-million-square-foot office campus next to the University of California-Irvine.
The company’s set to occupy all of 5260 California Ave., a four-building office that runs about 91,000 square feet, according to multiple real estate sources familiar with the transaction.
The office was last used by chipmaker and rival, Broadcom Inc., as part of its former operations at UCI Research Park, whose collection of low-rise buildings are owned and operated by Newport Beach-based Irvine Co.
Broadcom moved its Irvine operations to the Five Point Gateway office campus on the other side of the city last year, leaving behind a collection of buildings it previously leased that total roughly 800,000 square feet.
More than half of the vacated space has since been re-leased by Irvine Co. since the holding, according to brokerage data.
Job Growth
Skyworks’ expansion marks the largest deal announced at the business park since Broadcom’s departure, and represents a big step up in office space for the local operations, which employs nearly 400 people in Irvine.
Skyworks had been leasing about 127,000 square feet elsewhere at UCI Research Park, which it describes as holding a design center and office space, according to the company’s latest annual report.
The company plans to keep its existing space, sources tell the Business Journal. The deal brings its total space in the area up to about 218,000 square feet—roughly the size of an entire office tower in the John Wayne Airport area.
Skyworks appears to be in growth mode locally. Its website lists more than 40 open positions in Irvine, including a host of engineering and technical jobs, as well as several corporate-type functions, such as an executive assistant for Chief Executive Liam Griffin.
Skyworks designates its headquarters as Woburn, Mass.—a suburb of Boston—where it leases about 158,000 square feet of manufacturing and office space.
Griffin, who joined the company in 2001 and was named chief executive in 2016, works out of executive offices in Irvine.
Skyworks employed an estimated 300 people in Irvine at the time of Griffin’s promotion, and has added about 100 people to the local operations since then, according to Business Journal records.
Griffin said at the time of his appointment to chief executive that the West Coast location was advantageous for him as it was close to Silicon Valley and provided easier travel to key Asia-Pacific markets and manufacturing hubs in China, when compared to the East Coast.
The Irvine offices are one of five locations in the U.S. where Skyworks occupied more than 100,000 square feet as of last year, according to regulatory filings.
Globally, Skyworks’ collection of facilities total about 2 million square feet. It also has large manufacturing facilities in Mexico and Japan, and employs more than 8,000 people companywide.
Executives with Skyworks could not be reached for comment and officials representing landlord Irvine Co. declined to comment on the recent transaction.
The company’s lease is the second largest reported expansion of office space for a local company in the past year, trailing only the planned 160,000-square-foot addition in Aliso Viejo by San Clemente-based medical device maker Glaukos Corp.
