After Permanent Shift To Hybrid Work, ULA Vacates 150K SF In Centennial

It doesn’t matter that United Launch Alliance, one of the Denver area’s largest aerospace companies, plans to add employees in the coming months.

Or that it recently announced plans to supply Amazon with rockets that will help power Project Kuipo, the e-commerce giant’s answer to SpaceX’s Starlink global broadband system. Or that CEO Tory Bruno feels the company is generally busier than it has ever been.

Even with all that momentum, ULA has decided to shrink its office footprint for now, Denver Business Journal reports. 

This summer, ULA vacated about 150K SF at Waterview IV, a Centennial, Colorado, building it leased for over a decade. The company instead plans to consolidate its Denver operations into a nearby trio of leased buildings that make up the bulk of its corporate campus.

The reason for the change was simple: To remain competitive, the company has adopted a more flexible remote work policy. As a result, it simply needs less space overall, even as business continues to boom.

“We sought means of aligning with these shifts [to remote work], while at the same time using this period to develop enhancements to become an even more attractive place to work while retaining our amazing workforce of rocket scientists and staff,” Bruno told Denver Business Journal. 

ULA’s neighbor in Waterview IV, Lockheed Martin Space, also decided to move out earlier this year, though it had leased a smaller portion of the building.

The departures mark a milestone for the South Denver office market, as office space continues to sit empty throughout the broader metro. A Q3 report from JLL found 21.1% vacancy in the office segment, the region’s highest pandemic-era rate.