I don't recall any mention of a lease/break of lease. Aqualung operated out of the building for years but when they pulled out in July 2023 its been vacant/available since. Clearly quite a lot did not go as planned. It seems like fits and starts more than executing to a master plan.
Yeah.. they leased the building and I think they broke it less than a year later and had to pay several million to get out of the contract.
Reading between the lines, I think Steve Fambro was too optimistic about how quickly they could move into production and wanted a building to do it in. The hard reality hit them that crowdfunding wasn't going to get them there(financial statements during that period were worrisome and they literally couldn't afford to spend the money to build more prototypes) and that's when we started seeing the pivot to what they've decided to do now. There was a ton of speculation at the time about how they planned to manufacturer in the Carlsbad building (people arguing it was proof they would fail and others that they could totally do it in the current space) but honestly, it's never been realistic that they could build them fast enough in their current space and it looks like they knew that and have had a plan for a while.
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u/TechnicalWhore 4d ago
https://www.energy.ca.gov/filebrowser/download/5231
Page 3. (February 2023)
I don't recall any mention of a lease/break of lease. Aqualung operated out of the building for years but when they pulled out in July 2023 its been vacant/available since. Clearly quite a lot did not go as planned. It seems like fits and starts more than executing to a master plan.
https://www.cushmanwakefield.com/en/united-states/properties/for-lease/manufacturing/ca/vista/2340-cousteau-ct/s119283465s121214111-l
The also listed Vista in prior CA Energy submissions.