A premier industrial campus adjacent to Hawthorne Municipal Airport in Southern California recently changed hands in a transaction highlighting the region’s growing significance as a hub for advanced manufacturing. The 2.04-acre facility, fully leased to a long-term tenant engaged in advanced manufacturing, serves as an extension of the company’s design and production operations.
The property comprises five buildings, including a 17,969-square-foot aircraft hangar with a 40-foot clear height, office space, an industrial research and development (R&D) facility, a terminal building, and an on-site fuel farm. Its unique location provides direct runway access, enabling seamless integration with aerospace operations. The asset sits within Hawthorne’s Century Business Center, a submarket noted for its constrained supply, near-zero vacancy rates, and limited new construction over the past decade.
The seller group included Farallon Capital Management, Jofa Capital, and Urban Investment Research Corporation (UIRC). The sale was facilitated by Michael Longo and Melissa Moock of CBRE’s National Partners, alongside Anthony DeLorenzo and Mark Shaffer from CBRE’s Private Capital Partners, and Katrin Gist of CBRE’s Airport and Aviation Properties Practice Group. Jofa Capital originally acquired the property in 2023 and successfully secured the long-term lease with a Fortune 100 company.
Jackson Brissette, managing principal at Jofa Capital, said the acquisition aligned with the firm’s “Funky & Fragmented” investment approach. He emphasized the value of participating in the Hawthorne Airport and Century Business Center community, which hosts numerous innovative and cutting-edge companies.
The property’s sale and leasing activity underscore the broader market trends in Southern California’s advanced manufacturing sector. Melissa Moock of CBRE described the strong investor appetite for mission-critical R&D and manufacturing assets, which support innovation, engineering, and production at a strategic level. As next-generation manufacturing expands, such specialized facilities are increasingly seen as long-term investments essential to tenant operations.
Situated in a leading advanced manufacturing cluster, the area around Hawthorne serves as a convergence point for industries including aerospace, electric vehicles, artificial intelligence, and clean energy. The presence of numerous innovation-driven companies reinforces the submarket’s importance as a focal node in the future of U.S. manufacturing.
According to CBRE Research, advanced manufacturing tenants leased approximately 3 million square feet of industrial space across Los Angeles and Ventura Counties in the first quarter of 2026, with nearly 88% of this activity occurring in the South Bay region. Overall industrial leasing in Los Angeles during this period reached 14.6 million square feet, marking a 27.3% increase quarter-over-quarter and a 4.4% rise compared with the same quarter the previous year.