Life insurer Pacific Life Insurance Co. and technology company QLogic Corp. are eyeing big expansions in Aliso Viejo.
Newport Beach-based Pacific Life, Orange County’s largest private company, plans to move as many as 1,000 workers to an eight-story office tower it is set to have built in Aliso Viejo by early 2008.
The company just signed a letter of intent to buy up to 5.5 acres of land at the Summit Office Campus, the 1 million-square-foot office campus off the San Joaquin Hills (73) Toll Road.
The Aliso Viejo building would allow Pacific Life to shift some operations from elsewhere in the county and give it room to grow, spokesman Tennyson Oyler said.
Pacific Life is set to keep its headquarters in Newport Center, Oyler said.
QLogic is said to be looking at building a 100,000-square-foot building at its headquarters at the Summit, according to real estate sources.
Also on tap are plans for a 400-space parking garage at the 12-acre site, according to real estate sources. The construction for both projects could be completed in the next two years.
The additions could represent an increase of nearly 50% in office size for the company, which counts about 535 Orange County workers.
QLogic owns three buildings totaling 165,000 square feet at the Summit. It leases an additional 37,000 square feet of space at the campus. The lease ends in 2009.
The company is talking with city officials to get approval on the expansion, according to sources. Current plans at the site allow for another two-story, 46,000-square-foot office building to be built.
QLogic officials wouldn’t confirm the project’s details.
“We don’t have any specific plans,” said Rick Franz, vice president of technology and planning for QLogic. “Our long-term, general plans are to expand in Orange County.”
Franz declined to comment further, except to say “everything is predicated on how well business goes,at this point everything is positive for QLogic.”
For more on this story, see the April 10 edition of the Business Journal.
