Raytheon Missiles & Defense is the newest addition to a growing community of technology companies at the University of Arizona Tech Park at the Bridges in Tucson.
Raytheon (NYSE: RTX) said this week that it opened a 14,000-square-foot office in The Refinery, a multitenant building on the southern edge of the park. After announcing its move earlier this year, the company invested $6.5 million in building out the new office and expects to create 100 new jobs.
Raytheon Missiles & Defense is the first corporate tenant at the UA Tech Park at the Bridges, which is within a few miles of the university’s main campus. The company shares a floor with UA Applied Research Corp., a nonprofit that handles national security projects for government and industry.
“We've had a decades-long relationship with Raytheon, so it was really exciting when they showed interest in the fourth floor of The Refinery building," Carol Stewart, vice president for Tech Parks Arizona, told AZ Inno.
Raytheon also has offices at an affiliated existing tech park location — the UA Tech Park at Rita Road in Tucson — where the defense company has been since 1993 and is one of the largest tenants.
The defense contractor, one of Arizona's largest employers, is a longstanding partner with UA through its workforce, innovation and technology initiatives. In addition to an internship program, the company hires hundreds of UA graduates a year and funds numerous research and development projects with the university involving hypersonic technology, Stewart said.
UArizona is home to two hypersonic facilities and additional wind tunnels that permit testing up to Mach 5. Wind tunnels help researchers better understand how aircraft and missiles behave in flight.
“Southern Arizona continues to be an attractive destination for our company to grow, largely because of our partnership with the University of Arizona,” Wes Kremer, president of Raytheon, said in a statement. “This latest expansion will not only strengthen our connection with them but with the broader community at-large."
The Tucson office of CBRE Group Inc. represented The Boyer Co. in the lease transaction, while the Tucson office of Cushman & Wakefield | PICOR Commercial Real Estate represented Raytheon.
More development on way at UA Tech Park
More than 100 companies — including IBM, Raytheon and Applied Energetic — are in the UA Tech Park campus, which consists of 2 million square feet of office, laboratory and production space. The UA Tech Park is directed by Tech Parks Arizona, which connects the university, community and industry to spur innovation and collaboration.
The Refinery opened in early 2022 and consists of 120,000 square feet of Class A office space.
The building, designed as a collaborative space, is half occupied by UA agencies — including Tech Launch Arizona — with development plans underway for an incubator outpost through the University of Arizona Center for Innovation. The remainder of the building is earmarked for industry tenants.
The UA Tech Park at the Bridges sits on 65 acres and is already home to a Marriott-branded hotel, The Refinery and the UA Mission Integration Lab with a fourth project in the works consisting of a 60,000-square-foot public media facility, Stewart said.
The Boyer Co., developer of the tech park, is also considering addition of another 150,000 square foot building on the site, she added.
“All of that combined with this recent announcement from Raytheon — it's going to be an absolutely amazing magnet for other projects,” Stewart said. "Our aerospace and defense industry in Tucson is very robust, and I’d love to see that expand in the tech park as well.”
