Missile Builder to Stay in Orange County : Relocations: Newport Beach’s Loral turned down offers from out of state. The decision means 1,300 jobs will not be lost.

Loral Aeronutronic, after scouring prospective sites from Southern California to Texas, will move its Newport Beach aerospace division and 1,300 employees--about 20 miles to the master-planned community of Rancho Santa Margarita.

The decision represents a significant boost for the 450-acre Santa Margarita Business Park, which last year lost Hughes Aircraft when the defense contractor moved hundreds of jobs to Carlsbad, Calif., to consolidate two divisions.

It also marks a victory for a consortium of government and Orange County businesses who teamed up to offer Loral incentives, such as subsidies for maintenance costs and transportation fees and lower electricity rates.

“This is the largest company that we know which was seriously considering moving out, and it’s the first case where a company of this size has worked with our consortium and we worked through the process to keep them,” said Fred Mickelson, regional manager for Southern California Edison. “We can now prove that it makes sense for businesses to stay in Orange County.”

Loral, which works on Defense Department missile systems from a 100-acre hillside site in Newport Beach, made the decision to stay in Orange County after three years as the object of a tug of war between California and other states. The decision saves aerospace jobs that might have gone to Texas or Arkansas, where parent company Loral Corp. has other missile production plants.

“We did a complete survey of options, including moving out of the state as many companies are doing,” said Shelly Buttrill, president of Loral Aeronutronic.

The final decision was based on lower cost of relocating within Orange County and need to keep experienced engineers and other employees happy, Buttrill said.

“It just so happens for our company that it makes more sense to keep these jobs here. Other companies have been leaving in great numbers,” Buttrill said.

Loral will move into a 300,000-square-foot building in Rancho Santa Margarita that was occupied by Hughes until it moved its Microelectronics Systems Division to Carlsbad last year. The loss of Hughes, along with 475 people, was seen as a severe blow to Rancho Santa Margarita’s progress.

Loral will also occupy a new, 47,000-square-foot building one block away from the former Hughes site. Loral signed an 8.8-year lease, with several options to continue for as long as 20 years. Buttrill said the company hopes to be moved by mid-1994.

“We are very excited that a company of Loral Aeronutronic’s stature has decided to locate in Rancho Santa Margarita,” said Anthony Moiso, president of Santa Margarita Co., which owns the business park.

A. Martin Stradtman, vice president of the Santa Margarita company, described the Loral lease as “the deal of the decade for Orange County so far.” He would not disclose financial details.