HOUSTON – (Realty News Report) – Axiom Space Inc., which is developing the world’s first commercial space station, has doubled the size of its offices near the NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston
Axiom Space is rapidly expanding after receiving $130 million in funding last month from venture capitalists. The money will accelerate growth of its workforce and the pace of developing its space station.
Last May, it was announced that Axiom Space had leased 31,327 SF in a building in Clear Lake City at 1290 Hercules Avenue. Yesterday, it was announced Axiom Space has leased an additional 32,389 SF in that building.
“In what has been a challenging year in the Houston office market, we are very pleased to accommodate Axiom’s impressive, sustained growth,” said Transwestern Vice President Matthew Seliger, who has worked to lease the office building, which is now 100 percent leased.
The Hercules II office building, constructed in a part of Southeast Houston that mushroomed in growth when NASA moved Mission Control to Houston in 1965, is owned by Capital Commercial Investments Inc. Transwestern’s Doug Little and Louann Periera also represent the building owner. Hercules II is a two-story, 63,716-square-foot, Class A office building less than 1 mile from the main entrance to NASA Johnson Space Center and surrounded by large Clear Lake institutions, including University of Houston – Clear Lake, Clear Lake Regional Medical Center, and Baybrook Mall.
Noah Kruger and Derrell Curry of the Savills real estate firm represented Axiom Space in the lease negotiations.
“Axiom Space was founded on the knowledge that commercial infrastructure and innovation in space would offer unique ways to improve life on Earth,” said Axiom co-founder and executive chairman Kam Ghaffarian, who provided the company’s seed funding through his family office, IBX. “Axiom’s sole-selection by NASA to connect to ISS and ability to leverage its key revenue lines are evidence of the company’s expertise and a business model that is set up to optimize across a variety of commercial on-orbit opportunities. This highly successful round is a pivotal moment for on-orbit commerce and its implications for our civilization’s potential are far-reaching.”
In January 2020, NASA selected Axiom to begin attaching its own space station modules to the International Space Station (ISS) as early as 2024, marking the company as a primary driver of NASA’s broad strategy to commercialize LEO. While in its assembly phase, Axiom Station will increase the current usable and habitable volume on ISS and provide expanded research opportunities. By late 2028, Axiom Station will be ready to detach when the ISS is decommissioned and operate independently as its privately owned successor.
Axiom Space recently announced plans to develop a 14-acre headquarters campus at the400-acre Houston Spaceport at Ellington Airport in southeast Houston.
March 16, 2021 Realty News Report Copyright 2021
Image: Courtesy Axiom Space
For more about the history of Houston development, check out the book Houston 2020: America’s Boom Town – An Extreme Close Up by Ralph Bivins. Available on Amazon http://tiny.cc/4a2g6y
File: Axiom Space Expands Offices in Clear Lake City
File: (2) Transwestern. Savills. Axiom Space Expands Offices in Houston. Clear Lake City. Ellington Airport.