Santa Ana-based Pacific Western Containers has signed a 5-year lease for 40,000 square feet of warehousing and production space in Tustin where it plans to expand operations from the company’s headquarters.
About three-fourths of the new facility will be used for warehousing with a quarter set for manufacturing, according to the company’s operations manager, Ken Ito. Pacific Western, which makes cardboard shipping boxes and employs 85 people, doesn’t plan to bring on more workers in the expansion. Instead, Ito said, the company is looking to ease crowding at its 60,000-square-foot Santa Ana site.
Pacific Western designs and makes boxes for the shipping of various items, including foods and beverages, agricultural products, cosmetics, furniture, appliances, hardware and automotive parts.
Ito said business continues to be good for Pacific Western, which serves as a gauge for how the industries it serves are doing. Still, he said he is seeing some signs of slowing with higher interest rates and a sluggish stock market.
