Anduril’s Costa Mesa Campus Listed by Invesco, SteelWave

Invesco and SteelWave are searching for a buyer for a Costa Mesa office and research campus occupied by defense firm Anduril Industries.

The owners have listed the 634,000-square-foot complex for sale, Bloomberg reported. An asking price was not disclosed, but the property’s value is estimated to be around $400 million based on a $251 million mortgage that Invesco and SteelWave obtained from a Pacific Investment Management Company real estate fund last fall, per property records cited by Bloomberg.

Anduril occupies the entire campus and uses it as its headquarters, one of several defense and aerospace companies with a home in the South Bay. Eastdil Secured is marketing the property. Anduril has 13 years left on its lease there.

Invesco and SteelWave acquired the Costa Mesa property, a former Los Angeles Times printing plant, in 2017 for $65 million. The firms completed a major redevelopment in 2023. If the asset trades near expectations, it would eclipse the recent $210 million sale of Bank of America Plaza in Los Angeles as the region’s biggest office transaction of the year.

The listing lands as Southern California cements itself as a hub for defense technology, buoyed by increased federal military spending and growing demand for artificial intelligence-powered defense systems. Venture capital firms poured $11.4 billion into U.S. defense tech startups through mid-June, more than double the $4.6 billion invested during the same period last year, per PitchBook data cited by Bloomberg. Anduril alone has raised $7.5 billion over the past year and was valued at $61 billion in a funding round completed in May.

Anduril has been expanding its operations in Southern California and across the country. In January, the Palmer Luckey-founded company announced plans for a $1 billion manufacturing facility in Long Beach and is building a 5 million-square-foot industrial park in Ohio for combat aircraft production. In April, Anduril leased 177,766 square feet in Tustin, adding to deals over the past year including a 190,000-square-foot office lease at The Hive in Costa Mesa and roughly 163,000 square feet at Harbor Logistics Center in Santa Ana.

— Chris Malone Méndez