Electric vehicle giant Tesla Inc. (Nasdaq: TSLA) is adding to its Orange County footprint with a nearly 60,000-square-foot lease in Costa Mesa, brokerage records indicate. The site would mark its third and by far the largest location in the city.
The industrial facility is less than 5 miles from its store and service center elsewhere in Costa Mesa; the Austin, Texas-based company now counts eight locations in the county, including retail stores and service centers.
The 59,487-square-foot lease is for the entirety of 3565 Cadillac Ave., a distribution building next to the Santa Ana River, north of the San Diego (405) Freeway near the Fountain Valley Costco.
The building has served as the headquarters for Kyocera Precision Tools, a manufacturer of indexable cutting tools and printed circuit board drills.
Tesla’s lease spans 10 years and begins this month. The lease is among the larger industrial deals for the city year-to-date by square footage, according to data from real estate market tracker CoStar Group Inc.
Michael Hefner and Trent Walker of Voit Real Estate Services represented the landlord, Burke Real Estate Group, in the transaction. Burke will also serve as the property management company.
EV Hub
The site is about 4 miles from Rivian Automotive Inc.’s (Nasdaq: RIVN) newly opened 32,000-square-foot service and delivery center in the city, representing the company’s most consumer-facing site in the area (see the Oct. 10 print edition of the Business Journal for more).
Costa Mesa is one of five service and delivery center locations for Rivian in California; the next closest delivery spots are in El Segundo and San Diego.
The Rivian service center is adjacent to that of Tesla’s existing buildings in the city.
Tesla, the world’s most valuable car company with a $685 billion market cap as of last week, counts local outposts in Newport Beach, Irvine, Mission Viejo, Buena Park and Brea in addition to Costa Mesa.
Tesla’s new Costa Mesa spot will be its largest to date in Orange County.
Specific uses of the building haven’t been disclosed by the new tenant. The building appears large enough to house repair and other services, beyond automobile sales.
It’s the EV maker’s second space to open this year, following the April debut of its Irvine sales and service facility, which spans 38,000 square feet along Barranca Parkway.
OC Share
Tesla vehicles were the No. 1 sellers in OC among luxury and sports cars in 2021, according to data from the Orange County Automotive Dealers Association (OCADA).
Its Model Y (5% market share) and Model 3 (4.1%) were the two top-selling cars in the county last year.
Tesla’s 15,527 new car registrations in OC last year were up 67% from 2020 levels.
Its vehicle sales represented 9.7% of all auto sales in OC last year.
Tesla’s national market share was 2.1% in 2021; the 7.6% variance between that figure and its OC’s market share was by far the largest of any car type reported by the OCADA last year.
