Electric aircraft maker Archer Aviation is expanding its regional network of futuristic flying air-taxis to L.A. Live, the sports and entertainment district in downtown Los Angeles.
The sprawling area — the size of nearly 70 NFL football fields laid side-by-side — is surrounded by Crypto.com Arena, where the Los Angeles Lakers, NHL’s Los Angeles Kings and WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks play, and the live-entertainment Peacock Theater.
On Monday, Aug. 24, Archer unveiled the 11th vertiport it plans to build in the L.A region through a partnership announced jointly with sports and entertainment giant AEG Worldwide — as it continues to revitalize the area with a taxi business for corporate clientele and sports teams at Crypto.com, according to Archer officials.
L.A. Live will become downtown’s first vertiport in what is becoming Archer’s largest network in the nation to move people with its air-taxis. Archer also is planning electric-taxi operations across San Francisco and throughout California, Texas, Georgia and New York.
The vertiport is the latest plan by AEG to redevelop its L.A. Live area.
Last fall, AEG said it wanted to build a 49-story high-rise with a 334-room hotel and 364 residential units on its upper floors, according an application filed with the Los Angeles Department of Planning. The building would be located just north of the entertainment district near West Olympic Boulevard and Georgia Street.
Adam Goldstein, Archer’s founder and chief executive officer, said his aviation company sees the expansion downtown as a one-of-a-kind opportunity to add a flagship location ahead of the 2028 Olympic Games.
“Working with AEG on an iconic project like this vertiport at L.A. Live gives us the opportunity to continue building the infrastructure needed for Southern California to lead in the next era of all-electric flight,” he said in a prepared statement.
Since the San Jose-based Archer said last year that it had become the air taxi provider and sponsor of the 2028 Olympic Games, the aviation firm has stitched together a plan for a Southern California network of takeoff and landing areas — called vertiports — that stretches from John Wayne Airport to Los Angeles International Airport and several smaller hubs.
The vertiports will connect superchargers to the taxis, providing a takeoff and landing pad at an airport, on top of a building, or in a newly constructed structure in an urban or suburban area. Archer says the aircraft will cut down drives over congested freeways to 10-20 minute flights with the electric taxis buzzing overhead through the skies of L.A. at speeds up to 150 mph.
The investments in the regional vertiport hubs is in the hundreds of millions.
For instance, a ground-level charging station is under construction at Clay Lacy Aviation at John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana. The fixed-based operator is spending $100 million on a new jet fuel and electric-fueling area, maintenance and hangar space and lounge for passengers.
Archer’s vertiport at L.A. Live joins a robust network already under development with FBOs like Clay Lacy, Atlantic Aviation and Signature Aviation, and Kilroy Realty Corp.’s Aero Long Beach office complex near the Long Beach Airport.
Other vertiports are planned for the Hawthorne Municipal Airport, Hollywood Burbank Airport (Atlantic Aviation), Long Beach (Kilroy), Van Nuys (Signature Aviation), Santa Monica Airport (Atlantic Aviation), SoFi stadium in Inglewood, and the downtown L.A. campus of the University of Southern California.
Another vertiport is planned in Woodland Hills at the practice facility and headquarters for the Los Angeles Rams football team at Rams Village at Warner Center, known as the downtown of the San Fernando Valley, where there’s a 1.5 square-mile regional business, residential and transit hub.
Similar to a helicopter, the electric taxi concepts lift off vertically and don’t need a runway, creating a niche for expanding such air travel just a few thousand feet overhead in one of the world’s busiest air travel hubs.
The aircraft under development by Archer and other smaller rivals would launch from rooftops or other taxi waystations. Once around 100 feet in the air, their engines and propellers tilt, creating a fixed-wing aircraft.
The electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft, or eVTOL in aerospace vernacular, generally will carry four passengers and a pilot. Some will carry cargo or emergency medical services.
The fledgling eVTOL market has yet to launch and continues with testing its flying machines.
To fly these futuristic craft during the Olympics, companies will need approval from the Federal Aviation Administration for the type of commercial service they want to operate — like a self-owned and operated service or partnerships with an airline.
Buying competition
Archer Aviation has made a flurry of acquisitions in the past month as it moves to consolidate the disparate eVTOL space.
In early August, the company made a pair of purchases to build on a partnership with Anduril Industries, the Costa Mesa-based defense technology company that specializes in drones, to co-develop an autonomous eVTOL military aircraft.
One of the acquisitions is a patent portfolio and hiring key talent from Overair, a spin-off of Karem Aircraft and backed by South Korea’s Hanwha Aerospace, which shut down its Overair factories in Santa Ana last year. The other is the acquisition of manufacturing assets and a 60,000-square-foot factory from Mission Critical Composites, a Huntington Beach-based defense contractor.
Also last month, Archer agreed to buy three aviation and autonomy businesses from Boeing — Wisk Aero, SkyGrid and Insitu — to boost its flying-taxi and autonomous flight capabilities. In return, Boeing received an equity stake that makes the aerospace giant one of Archer’s largest shareholders.
Wisk Aero develops autonomous air taxis while Insitu makes drones. SkyGrid is an air-traffic software provider.