Even as it downsizes its local operations, Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. has landed more than 165,000 square feet of additional space at the former Health Net building in Shelton as a relocation site for workers as it performs renovations at its Stratford headquarters.
UnitedHealth Group Inc. acquired Health Net”™s Northeast operations last year, cutting 750 jobs after merging it with its Trumbull-based subsidiary Oxford Health and making the Shelton building expendable.
The Sikorsky transaction is the second-biggest lease deal in Fairfield County this year, according to the Stamford office of Cushman & Wakefield, after Westport-based Bridgewater Associates”™ deal to sublease about 225,000 square feet at Wilton Woods Corporate Center. Just last week, a Westport official reported that Bridgewater is transferring 90 back-office jobs to Bank of New York Mellon in an outsourcing arrangement; Bridgewater is the town”™s largest employer with 1,200 workers at last report.
Sikorsky likewise is in cost-cutting mode ”“ the manufacturer is jettisoning more than 400 jobs at its Stratford helicopter manufacturing operations, as it braces for possible military budget cuts. Those reductions come even as Sikorsky attempts to redesign its X-2 high-speed helicopter prototype as an armed scout for potential sale to the U.S. Army. Any such contract could set Sikorsky up for decades of additional work, even as it readies for production of a large multi-mission helicopter for the U.S. Marine Corps.
When first readying for the Marine Corps contract in 2007, Sikorsky secured the former Dictaphone Corp. headquarters in Shelton as a design center. Rather than serving as a design center to transform the X-2 into the proposed S-97 Raider armed scout, however, Sikorsky for the time being is merely using the Health Net building at 1 Far Mill Crossing as flex space while it upgrades its Stratford offices.
As reported by the Fairfield County Business Journal in August, Sikorsky also took a large block of space this year in a Milford industrial park for use as a warehouse for high-tech parts.
Sikorsky”™s new subsidiary, Eclipse Aviation, also revealed this month that it would restart production of its “very light jets,” with Aviation International News citing Sikorsky President Jeff Pino that the company would manufacture fuselage and wing structures at Sikorsky”™s plant in Poland, with final assembly set for Albuquerque, N.M., where Eclipse is based.
Very light jets are designed to be flown by a single pilot while carrying anywhere from four to eight people. The Cessna division of Providence, R.I.-based Textron also makes a model called the Cessna Mustang at a Kansas plant.
At full production, Sikorsky hopes to produce between 50 and 100 jets a year selling for $3 million each, according to Aviation International News.
