Rockwell Keeps Headquarters in Orange County
Rockwell International Corp., which recently sold most of its California operations to Boeing Co., said Friday it will keep its world headquarters in Orange County. Rockwell announced that it will move its corporate offices in Seal Beach and about 150 employees this summer to the 21-story Plaza Tower building near the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa. The company has leased three floors of the smoked glass and stainless steel building from the Segerstrom Co. under a 12-year lease some industry insiders valued at about $1.6 million.
The lease itself isn’t a particularly big one, but business retention specialists say that Rockwell’s decision to keep its world headquarters here bolsters ongoing efforts to attract other major employers and corporate headquarters operations to the county.
“This comes at a time when there is a lot of good news out there about Orange County, its economy and its quality of life, and this is just another feather in our cap,” said Ron Kirkpatrick, spokesman for the Orange County Business Council. “Helping to persuade them to stay is a major win for us.”
After the move, about 125 Rockwell corporate employees will remain at the former headquarters in Seal Beach, which the company sold to Boeing last month along with its defense and aerospace operations in a $3.2-billion deal.
The Rockwell workers remaining in Seal Beach are under contract to Boeing to provide payroll, benefits and other personnel-related services to the newly acquired defense and aerospace units, which have been renamed Boeing North American Inc.
The sale left Rockwell with one California-based operation, its semiconductor unit in Newport Beach. Rockwell also has a Michigan-based automotive parts business, an avionics and communications unit in Iowa and a factory and industrial automation unit headquartered in Wisconsin.
The decision to relocate the company’s world headquarters to Costa Mesa came after a search that reportedly focused on sites throughout Southern California.
But Rockwell moved its headquarters to Seal Beach from El Segundo in 1991, and most corporate employees now live in Orange County. That factor weighed heavily in the decision to stay, said Kevin Hayes, president of the Irvine regional office of Staubach Co. The commercial real estate broker represented Rockwell in its relocation search.
The move also puts the corporate staff much closer to the company’s fast-growing semiconductor business on Jamboree Road near MacArthur Boulevard, only about two miles from the new headquarters.
The new offices “will meet our business requirements and serve our employee needs for many years to come,” said Donald Beall, Rockwell’s chairman and chief executive.
The company looked at nearly a dozen sites, including Irvine Co. properties in the giant land developer’s Spectrum industrial park.
The deal with Segerstrom was clinched by the prestige location, said broker Hayes.
Segerstrom’s willingness to give Rockwell a long lease that locks in costs at a time rental rates for prime Orange County office space are expected to start climbing also was a factor, industry sources said.
Rockwell officials would not comment on the cost, but commercial real estate industry sources said the company likely is paying about $2 per square foot, or $134,000 a year for 67,000 square feet in Segerstrom Co.’s signature office tower at 600 Anton Blvd.
Rockwell said it will move its senior corporate staff, legal department, financial and human relations staffs, technical and business development department, and corporate communications department to the new headquarters.
