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EBuilt Scales Down With Move

EBuilt Scales Down With Move

By ANDREW SIMONS





Custom business software developer eBuilt Inc. has moved its headquarters from Irvine to a smaller Costa Mesa office, according to the real estate brokerage that worked on the deal.

The company signed a three-year sublease for 24,911 square feet of space in Costa Mesa just off the San Diego (I-405) Freeway, according to Cushman & Wakefield Inc.

The new facility is two-thirds the size of eBuilt’s old headquarters, a 40,000-square-foot building just off Jamboree Road in Irvine. The company didn’t return phone calls for comment.

The move comes a year after eBuilt cut its workforce by about 30% and closed an office in San Diego. The company, which employs about 90 people, has had intermittent layoffs in the past year.

Like other technology companies, eBuilt has had its share of problems. The company develops electronic commerce software and provides other network services. The company’s Web site lists Santa Ana-based PacifiCare Health Systems Inc. and Ingram Micro Inc., also of Santa Ana, as customers.

During the dot-com heyday, Internet startups and big businesses hired development companies such as eBuilt to build Web sites that allow for online transactions.

But as some Internet companies went out of business and Corporate America cut back on tech spending, eBuilt and others were forced to scale back or went out of business altogether.

EBuilt’s layoffs were part of an effort to match the company’s costs with a big change in its business climate. Rival Sapient Corp. of Cambridge, Mass., also has laid off hundreds of workers in the downturn.

“We’re really hunkering down,” eBuilt Chief Executive Michael Dewey said late last year. “We’re trying to stay nimble so we can capitalize on the market when it comes back.”

EBuilt and others have found life preservers by targeting retailers and other big corporations that still are spending on technology.

“We first started out with dot-com customers mostly out of necessity,” Dewey said. “I don’t think we have a single dot-com client anymore. Most of our projects are with large Fortune 500 companies.”

A year ago, eBuilt raised $8 million from Bluestem Capital Co. and the Edgewater Funds to expand its customer base with a focus on big clients.

The downturn has hit other local e-commerce companies as well.

In 2000, Nexgenix Inc., a software developer for corporate Web pages, laid off about 30 of its then-183 Irvine workers. It then set what it calls “customer acquisition” targets for each employee. That means each employee must be a salesperson in addition to other duties.

“It’s a great way to maximize output in a down economy,” a Nexgenix spokeswoman said.

The company recently closed deals with H & R; Block Inc. and online auto retailer CarsDirect.com Inc.

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