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Elevate Aircraft Seating, a designer and manufacturer of seats for airlines, has leased more than 280,000 square feet of warehouse space at McDonnell Center Business Park in Huntington Beach.
The Washington state-based company formerly known as Adient Aerospace will move into the 280,460-square-foot space at 5701 Skylab Road, where it would operate “a new manufacturing facility to increase its production and distribution capabilities,” according to Savills Managing Director Chris O’Connor.
Elevate Aircraft Seating will continue its already existing Huntington Beach operations at 5511 Skylab Road, where the airline seat manufacturer has an 80,000-square-foot facility.
5701 Skylab Road is a two-floor industrial building that opened in 2000 and is owned by Prologis Inc. The warehouse space was previously leased to Hybrid Apparel, a Cypress-based clothing retailer.
“Elevate Aircraft Seating is growing rapidly and sought a new manufacturing facility to increase its production and distribution capabilities,” O’Connor said in a statement. “This transaction was a unique challenge as Elevate required a facility that provided both expansive office and warehouse space.
“After evaluating the real estate and labor market, we determined that expanding into an additional facility in Huntington Beach was an ideal solution for the company’s requirements,” O’Connor continued. “The location allows Elevate to tap into the current labor market, provides 40,000 (square feet) of office space and the company can occupy the premises immediately.”
Elevate is among several aerospace companies that specialize in seats and aircraft entertainment, such as Safran, which employs about 1,720 in Huntington Beach, Panasonic Avionics Corp., which has 1,390 employees in Irvine, and Thales Avionics Inc., which has 900 employees in Irvine.
Elevate specializes in designing, manufacturing and selling a portfolio of seating products to airlines and aircraft leasing companies. The Bothell, Washington state-based company will lease the entire space at 5701 Skylab Road and move in immediately.
Steve Card, Savills vice chairman, said the lease signing is a rare expansion of a manufacturing company in Southern California.
O’Connor and Steve Card represented Elevate Aircraft Seating in lease negotiations.
Elevate Aircraft Seating was founded in 2018 and has facilities in Washington, California and Germany.
Orange County’s Industrial Market
CBRE’s most recent report on Orange County’s industrial market said the sector struggled through the first three months of 2025, with “rising vacancy and modest asking rate decline” countering strong leasing activity and new construction starts.
“Decision-makers continued to show caution as there was little urgency to commit to space. Occupiers leveraged pricing uncertainty and increasing vacancy to negotiate favorable lease and sale terms,” according to CBRE. “New leasing activity was strong in Q1 2025 as gross activity reached 2.4 million square feet, with five deals above 100,000 square feet signed in 2025.”
Savills, in its market report published earlier this month, said 1.8 million square feet of industrial space was under construction, countywide, during the first quarter of 2025, plus another 808,407 square feet delivered for the same period.
“Industrial inventory continues to rise as office buildings are redeveloped to industrial use,” per Savills.
Major industrial leases signed last quarter, according to Savills, include Straub Distributing Co. Ltd.’s 280,460-square-foot renewal at 4833 E. La Palma Blvd. and Legrand’s 194,357-square-foot lease at 1515 E. Winston Road. Both locations are in Anaheim.