Cavotec Dabico, a maker of support equipment for airports, maritime ports and other facilities, plans to expand its West Coast manufacturing operations after inking a new industrial lease in Cypress.
The company, a unit of Switzerland-based global engineering group Cavotec SA, last week signed a lease for 5665 Corporate Ave., a 159,943-square-foot building just off Cerritos Avenue near the Los Alamitos airfield.
The lease runs for 10 years and is valued at more than $10 million.
Cavotec will lease the entire building, which includes about 30,000 square feet of office space. It will use the Cypress facility for its regional headquarters, as well as a manufacturing and distribution hub for the West Coast.
The lease is a big step up in size for the local operations of Cavotec, which will relocate to Cypress from locations in Costa Mesa and Fullerton, where it had been leasing about 90,000 square feet on a combined basis.
The Costa Mesa location, which operates under the Cavotec Dabico US Inc. name, had been used primarily to manufacture in-ground fuel systems for aircraft.
The Fullerton facility, which houses the company’s Cavotec Inet US Inc. division, makes ground support equipment for aircraft and offers other engineering and manufacturing services.
SoCal
Cavotec has had operations in Orange County since the 1960s.
The company briefly considered locations outside of Southern California as it sought to consolidate the Costa Mesa and Fullerton facilities, but decided it wanted to keep the operations in OC, executives said.
“We are confident Cavotec Dabico needs to be located in Southern California and our confidence in California is proven by our long-term commitment to this new corporate expansion in Cypress,” said Christian Bernadotte, regional manager of the Americas and chairman of the board for Cavotec Dabico US and Cavotec Inet US Inc.
The company’s lease is the second notable manufacturing-related expansion seen in OC in as many weeks.
Glenair Inc., a Glendale-based maker of electrical connectors, said late last month it would expand into a 205,887-square-foot building on Cerritos Avenue in Anaheim. The company’s new industrial lease is expected to bring about 300 jobs to Anaheim.
Those Glenair and Cavotec deals take two of OC’s dwindling supply of larger industrial buildings off the market.
Single-Tenant Industrials
There were more than 60 single-tenant industrial buildings larger than 100,000 square feet for lease in OC as recently as 2011.
There now are less than 30 of that sort available, according to Louis Tomaselli, senior managing director for the Irvine office of Jones Lang LaSalle.
The falling level of availabilities speaks to the improving economy, as well as a resurgent local manufacturing sector, said Tomaselli, who represented Cavotec in the Cypress lease along with colleague Garrett McClelland.
Cavotec’s major expansion of manufacturing and assembly operation within the airport and port engineering products sector “proves that businesses are expanding within the region,” Tomaselli said.
LBA Realty
The Cypress building’s landlord, Irvine-based LBA Realty, was represented by Rick Ellison and Randy Ellison with the Irvine office of Cushman & Wakefield Inc.
LBA bought the Cypress building at the end of 2010 for an undisclosed price.
The building was previously home to consumer electronics company JVC Americas Corp., part of Japan-based JVC Kenwood Holdings Inc.
The company ran a factory service center for its digital storage systems division at the building but moved out of the location in 2011 following the sale to LBA.
LBA subsequently updated the two-story property, which is on about 6 acres of land, and put it up for sale or lease. The landlord isn’t expected to sell the property now, following the new lease with Cavotec.
