Connexion by Boeing, the Seattle-based company’s effort to provide in-flight Internet service for commercial air passengers, plans to move its operations from Anaheim to the Irvine Spectrum, where it has reached agreement on a five-year lease for nearly 95,000 square feet.
The 300-person Boeing unit will occupy two buildings at 15460 and 15480 Laguna Canyon Road in the Spectrum. Terms of the deal with The Irvine Company were not released. Connexion is scheduled to occupy the new space in November, when the buildings are completed.
Connexion was spawned as a separate unit in Boeing’s Anaheim facilities. Its move to South County had been expected, as officials made it known in real estate circles they wanted to locate the unit in an area with a larger concentration of technology-related companies.
Boeing officials did not return calls for this story.
The Irvine Co., developer of the 5,000-acre masterplanned business park, sees Connexion as a welcome addition to the Spectrum.
“The fact that it is an aerospace (company) speaks to the diversity of the (business) clusters of the Spectrum,” said the Irvine Co.’s spokeswoman Jennifer Smith.
Connexion is competing to develop ways to offer airline passengers access to e-mail and the Web along with other multimedia services. Its new Irvine neighbors include two competitors: Sextant In-Flight Systems and the former Sony Transcom, now a unit of Rockwell International.
The Boeing unit has created a system allowing high-speed, two-way Internet access and live television services to an aircraft in flight. The system is being installed in private jets and is scheduled to be expanded to commercial airliners next year.
The effort is part of Boeing’s bid to diversify. The airplane manufacturer is looking to create new technologies that will align it with the changing economy. It has been estimated that the airborne communications market could account for more than $50 billion in revenue in the next decade.
Jeff Manley of the Staubach Co. represented Boeing, while the Irvine Co. represented itself. n
