Dental products maker Sybron Dental Specialties Inc. is expanding in a move of its local operations to Anaheim after striking one of the county’s larger leases so far this year.
Sybron, a unit of Washington, D.C.-based Danaher Corp., signed a 10-year lease valued at $17.3 million for 166,868 square feet of space at 1515 S. Manchester Ave. near Disneyland.
The company is moving a nearby plant in Orange and offices in Newport Beach to Anaheim. Sybron has about 120,000 square feet of space now,about 100,000 in Orange and 18,500 in Newport.
The majority of the company’s local workers, about 420 people, are at its 101,720-square-foot plant in Orange.
The Newport Beach office at 100 Bayview Circle near Bristol Street came about before Danaher bought Sybron for $2 billion last year.
Sybron had moved about 40 executives to the Newport offices.
Now Sybron’s administrative and manufacturing work is set to move to Anaheim.
Sybron’s business units include Kerr Dental, which makes restorative dental materials and devices used in root canals, and Ormco, which makes orthodontic supplies such as bracket braces, bands, crowns and elastics.
The company also makes dental implants.
Jeff Read and Greg Osborne of Grubb & Ellis Co. represented Sybron in the lease. Mike Hefner and Mike Vernick of Voit Commercial Brokerage LP represented landlord 1515 Manchester LLC.
Sybron was “in the marketplace evaluating several alternatives,” Hefner said. “One of which was to maintain multiple facilities, which is what they have now. The other was to consolidate into one building.”
Officials from Sybron and Danaher declined to comment on the move.
1515 Manchester Ave.’s manufacturing space plus offices was a fit, according to Hefner. The Anaheim office is nearly 47,000 square feet larger than what Sybron has in Orange and Newport. Negotiations for the Anaheim building started in early February, he said.
“They did a pretty thorough search of the marketplace,” Hefner said.
Sybron is expected to start tenant improvement work in the fall and move in January. The Anaheim building, which faces the Santa Ana (I-5) Freeway, was built in 1965 and underwent a renovation in 1984.
Former Odetics HQ
The building long was the headquarters of Odetics Inc., a onetime aerospace company that later melded into an incubator of other business.
In 2002, Odetics sold its former headquarters and a nearby building for $22.6 million to 1515 Manchester LLC.
Odetics isn’t in business anymore. An offshoot, Iteris Inc., now has its headquarters at 1515 Manchester.
Iteris holds a lease for the building through October, Hefner said.
“The building was underutilized and only partially occupied,” he said. “Sybron will be taking the entire building.”
Iteris, which makes sensors for traffic control, plans to relocate locally, according to a spokeswoman.
