Panasonic Avionics, a maker of in-flight entertainment systems for airlines, plans to relocate its corporate headquarters from its longtime base in Lake Forest to Irvine after inking the largest office lease reported in Orange County this year.
The company, OC’s third-largest aerospace and defense company by employee count, is set to occupy nearly 260,000 square feet of space at the Park Place office campus near the intersection of Michelson Drive and Jamboree Road, just off the San Diego (405) Freeway and a mile from John Wayne Airport.
The company will be leasing space in multiple buildings at the 2.2 million-square-foot office campus, which is run by Irvine-based LBA Realty.
Jennifer Whittington and David Dowd of CBRE Group Inc., and Robert Thagard and Ali Anderson of Cushman & Wakefield, represented LBA in the just-announced deal.
Royce Sharf, Michael Props and Kelly Givens of Savills represented Panasonic Avionics in the new lease.
Panasonic Avionics confirmed the lease to the Business Journal, noting that the new global headquarters in Irvine will hold between 1,500 and 1,600 local employees.
Staggered Move
The move to Irvine isn’t expected to take place immediately.
The lease for most of the Park Place space doesn’t begin until the end of next year, according to data from real estate market tracker CoStar Group Inc., which lists the lease as the largest office transaction in OC since the onset of the pandemic (see page 18).
Panasonic currently occupies space in about a half-dozen low-rise office buildings in Lake Forest, just off Bake Parkway near the Foothill (241) Toll Road. Those buildings are run by several landlords, and the leases there expire in 2021 and 2022, according to CoStar records.
Panasonic Avionics—part of Japan’s Panasonic Corp.—reported employing more than 2,000 people in OC in all as of last year. That’s up from about 1,200 people a decade ago.
It’s long been Lake Forest’s second-largest employer after sunglasses maker Oakley Inc., which is based in the Foothill Ranch section of the city.
The Lake Forest buildings house Panasonic’s corporate, engineering, production and administrative operations.
It will maintain a small office in the city after the Irvine move, company officials indicate.
Thousands of planes have Panasonic’s gear for watching movies, TV shows, shopping, playing games or making calls (see story, page 6).
Space Down
Panasonic occupies north of 300,000 square feet in Lake Forest.
The contraction of space is partly down to the efficient floorplates and office layouts at Park Place, as well as recent cuts to Panasonic’s local workforce.
Like most other area aerospace and airline-related firms with operations in OC, the company’s seen a decline in business during the pandemic as air travel has fallen dramatically.
State records indicate 226 permanent job cuts at the company were made effective as of earlier this month.
Panasonic Avionics competitors include Thales InFlyt Experience, which is based in Irvine, as well as Gogo Inc., Viasat Inc. and Safran Passenger Innovations, a unit of France’s Safran that has a hub in Brea (see story, this page).
Both Safran and Thales have also disclosed local job cuts and furloughs with the state during the pandemic.
Alteryx Backfill
Panasonic Avionics is expected to take up space across five of the 13 office buildings at the Park Place campus.
Its largest block of space is reported to be a nearly 93,000-square-foot location at the campus’ 3345 Michelson Drive office, the same building that analytics firm Alteryx Inc. is set to move from later this year.
Alteryx is setting up new headquarters at the Spectrum Terrace development, where it will lease nearly 183,000 square feet of space.
Other notable tenants at Park Place include storage device giant Western Digital Corp., which now has its headquarters in Silicon Valley.
Western Digital moved its then-headquarters from Lake Forest to Park Place a decade ago, and leased 490,000 square feet there until earlier this year, when it vacated some 100,000 square feet.
OC’s In-Flight Hub
Panasonic Avionics’ move to Irvine follows that of fellow in-flight amenity firm, Safran Passenger Innovations, a Brea-based subsidiary of French aerospace giant Safran Group that announced plans earlier this year to move its local operations into a bigger area facility.
The plans also included the construction of a new building for its growing operations in the city.
It will ultimately occupy 209,000 square feet at the new spot, nearly doubling Safran Passenger Innovations’ footprint in Brea.
The Business Journal reported on the planned expansion in February, a month before the coronavirus pandemic halted growth in the aerospace industry.
In March, Safran furloughed 350 local workers that are part of the in-flight entertainment group, state records indicate.
At the time, a Safran Group spokesperson said company had “scaled down to essential operations in Orange County.”
Along with Irvine-based Thales InFlyt Experience, Panasonic and Safran comprise the largest part of OC’s hub of in-flight entertainment systems manufacturers and software providers.
The trio employed more than 4,000 people locally and occupied some 1.1 million square feet of space in the area prior to the pandemic, according to Business Journal records.
State records indicate that Thales reported 128 permanent job cuts in March, and another 681 temporary cuts in May.
—Katie Murar
