REAL ESTATE : Ford Aerospace Moving Headquarters to New Building in Newport Beach

Ford Aerospace & Communications Corp. will take 21,000 square feet of office space in a new building in Newport Beach as it moves part of its headquarters to Orange County and part to Arlington, Va., from Detroit.

Most of the 50-person staff for the big defense contractor, owned by the car manufacturer since 1961, is expected to move to the West Coast office. Ford Aerospace employs 13,500 at plants around the country.

The company will get its name on the six-story, 313,000-square-foot building--actually two office towers joined by a glass atrium--off the Corona del Mar Freeway. The building will be called the Ford Aerospace Building. Ford will move in by June.

Downey Savings & Loan Assn. in Costa Mesa developed the building as part of the $400-million Bayview Corporate Center at Bristol Street and Jamboree Road. The thrift will move its own executive offices into the building as well. A spokesman said Ford is expected to eventually expand into more of the building, which sports a three-story atrium and fountains in its main entrance.

Nearby is another piece of land sold by home builder J.M. Peters Co. to Canadian developer Bramalea Ltd. for another office building which will share a parking structure with the Downey building.

Peters, which has also moved its headquarters to the Downey building, has built homes nearby. Also part of the center is a Marriott all-suites hotel opening soon and some retail buildings, said a spokesman for Downey.