500 layoffs

Sikorsky Aircraft said it plans to close the helicopter assembly operation at its campus near Jupiter.

Sikorsky Aircraft owner Lockheed Martin said it would close the helicopter assembly operation at the campus it shares with Pratt & Whitney near Jupiter and lay off about 500, nearly half of the employees at the Palm Beach County site.

Sikorsky spokesman Paul Jackson said the company “will not renew the lease for the Florida Assembly and Flight Operations property ... and will vacate the building by year-end. We will continue to operate the Development Flight Center on the same campus.”

Six hundred people in Sikorsky’s flight development are expected to keep their jobs, according to Kelly Smallridge, president and CEO of the Business Development Board, the county’s economic development arm.

Smallridge said she was given a heads-up a few months ago about the layoffs, which are expected in October. Some of the Jupiter employees may be offered jobs at Sikorsky’s operations in Maryland or other sites, she said.

“I have already had six companies call me to hire anybody who is not going to take a package with Sikorsky/ Lockheed [to move to other locations],” Smallridge said Wednesday. “This is an opportunity to take these employees and place them into companies that need talent.”

CareerSource Palm Beach County spokesman Tom Veenstra said the employment agency has been contacted by five employers interested in hiring the aerospace workers.

Sikorsky, which was acquired by Lockheed Martin for $9 billion in 2015, leases about 500,000 square feet from United Technologies Corp., parent to Pratt & Whitney, the jet engine development company also located at the site.