SpaceX is coming to the Pacific Northwest.

Elon Musk, the company’s founder and chief designer (CTO), announced the official opening of SpaceX Seattle at an event on Jan. 16 at Seattle Center. And despite its name, the company’s new office will be located in Redmond, though an exact location has not been released.

According to its website, the company — which is based in Hawthorne, Calif. — designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft. “The company was founded in 2002 to revolutionize space technology, with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets,” the website states.

Bart Phillips — CEO of OneRedmond, the city’s private-public partnership for economic and community development — attended the SpaceX event earlier this month and in an electronic memo, he called Musk’s plan to develop, manufacture and deploy satellite-based broadband on a global scale as “audacious and (he believes) fully achievable.”

“OneRedmond is convinced that the talent developed over the last 30 years by all of our technology companies is the foundation for the continued recruitment and development of the regional economy,” Phillips wrote in his memo. “We are also convinced that recruiting new companies to the region to draw on this talent is good for both incumbents and new firms alike. New entrants such as SpaceX will no doubt compete for existing employees.”

In his memo, Phillips said Musk told the crowd in Seattle that he chose Redmond to “access the deep pool of engineering talent in the region,” adding that his recruits were less willing to move to Los Angeles — a statement that prompted cheers from the audience of potential recruits.

In a video of Musk’s speech — provided by an event attendee — he encouraged folks to apply for jobs with his company multiple times if they do not receive an initial response.

“It’s really hard to sort of add like 500 people all at once and have that be good,” he said.

Musk added that they plan to grow SpaceX Seattle, but they want to do it carefully, “adding the right expertise at the right time.”

Those potential recruits are not the only ones happy to see SpaceX coming to town.

“I’m excited to welcome SpaceX to Redmond,” said Redmond Mayor John Marchione. “The spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation that they bring is well matched with the diverse, well-educated, and talented aerospace engineers, programmers and creative talent in our community. I look forward to them growing their workforce in the area to their projected 1,000 employees as their vision for a satellite-based Internet service becomes reality.”

Robert Winglee, professor and chair of the Department of Earth and Space Sciences at the University of Washington (UW), added that the Seattle area has been a hub for innovation in space science and technology for many years with established companies such as Aerojet in Redmond as well as relative newcomers Planetary Resources, also in Redmond, and Blue Origin in Kent.

“The arrival of SpaceX adds critical mass that will be an attracter for more talent and innovations that will enable Seattle to continue to lead in space developments for decades to come,” said Winglee, who is also the director of the Washington Space Grant Consortium.

He said with this critical mass, the region will become an even stronger hub for innovation and likened the situation to how Silicon Valley became a hub for innovation in computing.

“The development of so many SpaceX satellites will lead to major innovations for communications that will benefit the world,” Winglee said. “For UW we would hope that our students from many different disciplines, from computer science to earth sciences and from aeronautical to electrical engineering, will be excited by such innovations and opportunities and participate in future developments that impact the future that is envisaged by SpaceX.”