Archer Aviation leases 501K sq ft at Morgan Hill campus

Archer Aviation has leased the entire 501,000-square-foot Cochrane Technology Center in Morgan Hill, south of San Jose, taking down a five-building campus that Trammell Crow Company built for exactly the kind of power-hungry manufacturing the eVTOL maker needs.

Why it matters

The lease is a reminder that in Silicon Valley, advanced-manufacturing site selection now turns on electrical capacity as much as location. Each building at Cochrane carries 4,000 amps of power, a spec that reads as ordinary for a data center or an aircraft line but is scarce in older industrial stock. For developers, that is the actionable point: purpose-built, high-amperage industrial space is leasing in full to a single tenant while generic warehouse sits, and the premium sits with whoever can deliver power at the slab. It also shows the San Francisco region still commands hard-tech occupiers when the box fits the use, even as its office market struggles.

The numbers

The campus spans five buildings across 30 acres at 18105 to 18265 De Paul Drive, developed by Trammell Crow Company with CBRE Investment Management and completed by contractor Millie & Severson in May 2024. Archer is taking all 501,000 square feet. The deal extends a run of Bay Area commitments by the company, which leased 105,000 square feet in San Jose in August 2025 and signed a master ground lease at Hawthorne Airport in November 2025. Neither party disclosed the lease value or term.

What’s next

Archer will fit out the campus for manufacturing, adding capacity as it scales aircraft production. For developers and capital watching the region, the signal is that spec industrial built to a high power spec can still land a full-building user in a soft leasing market, and that the tenants writing those leases are increasingly hardware and mobility companies, not logistics.