Aircraft Defense Firm Moves L.A. Office to El Segundo

Another aerospace defense firm is taking space in El Segundo, Calif.

Hermeus, a hypersonic aircraft designer and producer, signed for 62,552 square feet at Hackman Capital Partners’ (HCP) office campus at 888 North Douglas Street, according to a first-quarter office report from Savills. Hermeus will move from its current location next to SpaceX’s facilities in the nearby South Bay city of Hawthorne to the redeveloped office campus that was previously a manufacturing site for Northrop Grumman.

Hermeus’ lease was the 10th-largest in the first three months of the year for Greater Los Angeles. HCP and Hermeus did not return requests for comment.

The Atlanta-based company designed and built a Mach 5 engine (which is about 3,800 mph), and works directly with the Department of Defense, according to its website.

El Segundo and L.A. County’s South Bay are again seeing aerospace and defense firms take up more office and industrial space like they did before the fall of the Soviet Union. Indeed, Hermeus’ L.A. employees are joining Varda Space Industries at HCP’s campus, which signed an expansion lease for  54,749 square feet at 888 Douglas in January of 2025 (taking part of a sublease from Beyond Meat). And other major companies in the industry such as FlightWave, Raytheon and Anduril are expanding or planning massive campus developments in the South Bay.

Meanwhile, at 27.2 percent, El Segundo’s office availability rate is almost the same as the Greater L.A. average, according to Savills’ quarterly report. The coastal city posted an average rent of $3.96 per square foot average rent per month, just below the wider market average.

Gregory Cornfield can be reached at gcornfield@commercialobserver.com.