REAL ESTATE

Medstone International Inc. is moving its headquarters from Costa Mesa to Irvine’s enormous Spectrum office and industrial park, part of a drift southward by some Orange County companies.

Many of them are moving to be closer to the fast-growing communities in the southern half of the county, which is undergoing a housing boom because there’s still plenty of open land there compared to north Orange County.

Medstone, too, wanted a more southern location because it is hiring a lot of new workers as it gears up to make a new medical device, said Ray Hess, a broker for Burke Commercial Real Estate Inc. in Irvine, which handled the deal.

Medstone, which came public last year, makes a machine that shatters kidney stones with sound waves instead of surgery. The company got approval to sell the device just last year from the federal Food and Drug Administration.

The company leased 42,000 square feet of a 67,000-square-foot building at 9975 Toledo Way in the big industrial park, which is located east and north of the junction of the Santa Ana and San Diego freeways. The building was developed by a joint partnership of the Irvine Co. and Irvine developer O’Donnell Armstrong & Partners.

The $2.1-million lease runs for 5 years. The company moves in March from its old offices on Monrovia Avenue.