It’s been a decade since Elon Musk’s SpaceX moved into a former business park in the city of Hawthorne — and people are starting to take notice.
In the years since SpaceX and Tesla’s Design Studio moved in, rents for industrial warehouse space in the former aerospace hub have doubled or tripled to as high as $1.50 per square foot, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Underutilized spaces are being converted to artist studios, filling up with boutique manufacturers like custom furniture builders. Other businesses catering to the new crop of employees include the brewery L.A. Ale Works, which moved a few blocks from SpaceX’s massive facility, even naming one of its beer Space XPA.
Adding to the buzz created by Musk, a new $2.6 billion stadium housing the NFL’s Los Angeles Chargers and Rams is set to open just to the north in Inglewood in 2020.
New arrivals are moving into the single-family blocks bordering the city’s industrial center — with the population of Hawthorne jumping 4.4 percent (to 88,031) between 2010 and 2016, despite the city seeing growth of just 0.2 percent between 2000 and 2010, according to U.S. Census data. [LAT] — Dennis Lynch