Broadcom Signs $183-Million Lease for New Irvine Offices

Communications chip maker Broadcom Corp. will move its Irvine headquarters to a new, larger location in a $183-million, 10-year lease with Irvine Co., the companies said Tuesday.

Broadcom agreed to rent almost 700,000 square feet in eight office buildings that Irvine Co. will build during the next two years near UC Irvine.

That represents an expansion of about 200,000 feet and the addition of about 150 employees, Broadcom spokesman Tom Porter said. The company has about 1,150 workers in two separate Irvine campuses now, about two-thirds of whom are engineers.

“We’re still finding quite a bit of engineering talent in this area,” said Porter, but the company has outgrown its facilities. Broadcom had less than 500 employees in 2000.

The new three- and four-story office buildings represent “the first significant office development in Orange County in four or five years,” said Bill Halford, president of office properties for Irvine Co. The Irvine office market was tight in 2000 and 2001, but the tech industry meltdown and recession drove occupancy and rents down.

In the third quarter of 2004, the vacancy rate in the area around John Wayne Airport was 13.7% and rent averaged about $2.11 per square foot, compared with 18.3% vacancy and rents of $2.08 a year earlier, according to real estate brokerage Cushman & Wakefield.

“This is probably the beginning of a recovery in the development industry going forward,” Halford said.

Shares of Broadcom fell 41 cents to $31.56 on Nasdaq.