{"id":145496,"date":"2026-01-23T00:46:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T00:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/145496\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T00:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T00:46:10","slug":"drone-maker-anduril-announces-1-billion-expansion-in-long-beach-long-beach-post-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/145496\/","title":{"rendered":"Drone maker Anduril announces $1 billion expansion in Long Beach \u2022 Long Beach Post News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anduril Industries, the U.S. drone-maker based in Costa Mesa, announced Thursday its plan to open a large-scale business campus in Long Beach and Lakewood.<\/p>\n

In a release<\/a>, the company said it is building a 1.1 million-square-foot facility for research and development at Douglas Park, a business complex north of the airport.\u00a0 Its headquarters will remain in Costa Mesa.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Construction will commence this year, with the first building expected to be completed by the end of next year, according<\/a> to the Los Angeles Times. The land is leased by real estate developer Sare Regis Group, the Times reported, which oversaw the buildout of aerospace company Rocket Lab\u2019s headquarters nearby.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Neither Anduril nor the brokers for the sale immediately disclosed the price of the land. A spokesperson said construction will cost \u201cin the hundreds of millions.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The campus will include six buildings that total 750,000 square feet of office space. There will be another 435,000 square feet meant for research and development.\u00a0According to the city\u2019s chamber of commerce, the investment is worth more than a billion dollars.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It will bring 5,500 new jobs to the city \u2014 software developers, flight-test teams and research specialists \u2014 and thousands more hours of temporary work needed for construction. There will be opportunities, a spokesperson said, for workforce programs with the city school district and two local colleges.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The company, which makes surveillance drones and military AI software for the Pentagon, is valued<\/a> at more<\/a> than $30 billion and ended 2025 with 7,000 employees.<\/p>\n

It announced earlier this month that it was awarded a $23.9 million contract<\/a> to develop more than 600 weaponized drones for the U.S. Marine Corps. In 2024, it secured a deal<\/a> to jointly bid on government contracts with Palantir Technologies as the Pentagon aims to cut costs.<\/p>\n

It was co-founded by Palmer Luckey, a former Cal State Long Beach student who later invented the virtual reality headset Oculus Rift.<\/p>\n

Neither Anduril nor the brokers for the sale immediately disclosed the purchase price of the land or the expected cost to build.<\/p>\n

It becomes the latest on a growing list of major firms to move their operations to the city.<\/p>\n

Pentland Brands, which includes the swimwear brand Speedo, announced<\/a> during the 2026 State of the City address earlier this month that it will move its North American headquarters from Cypress to Long Beach.<\/p>\n

\"\"The footprint of Anduril\u2019s planned Long Beach campus. Courtesy of Anduril.<\/p>\n

Mayor Rex Richardson, who delivered the address, said this move was part of a renewed effort to improve the image and tax base of the city through a variety of programs designed to lure business and keep it here.<\/p>\n

The mayor shaped the address around the city\u2019s economy, but also job growth, promising 4,000 new openings around the city by 2028.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a release, he characterized Anduril\u2019s expansion as a \u201cmajor vote of confidence\u201d in the city and state\u2019s embrace of advanced manufacturing and aerospace companies.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, the next generation of companies is choosing to build and hire here again,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Anduril said the main reason for the move was the city\u2019s location \u2014 close to Hawthorne and Torrance and 90 minutes from its test site in Capistrano \u2014 as well as its history in U.S. defense and manufacturing, and the existing portfolio of aerospace startups situated around the city airport, coined as \u201cSpace Beach.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat combination of history, talent, and industrial infrastructure makes Long Beach a natural place for Anduril to continue scaling its operations,\u201d the company wrote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anduril Industries, the U.S. drone-maker based in Costa Mesa, announced Thursday its plan to open a large-scale business…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-145496","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-long-beach","8":"tag-long-beach","9":"tag-long-beach-headlines","10":"tag-long-beach-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}