An Anaheim maker of traffic lights and control cabinets is expanding in Mexico.
Econolite Control Products Inc. has said it signed a $2.1 million, seven-year lease for a 70,000-square-foot industrial building along the border in Tecate.
“It was a matter of doubling their size in Tecate,” said Chris Migliori, a broker with GVA Daum who represented Econolite in the lease.
The building includes manufacturing, office and warehouse space, Migliori said.
The company already had a site in Tecate, east of Tijuana, he said.
Econolite makes traffic signals and more complex electronics and software, including vehicle detection systems, road and freeway cameras and traffic control cabinets.
The company dates back to 1933 and has products on roads, intersections and highways across the country. Privately held Econolite, which declined to comment for this story, doesn’t disclose revenue. The Business Journal estimates yearly sales in the ballpark of $50 million.
Last year, Econolite bought Safetran Traffic Systems Inc., a Colorado Springs, Colo.-based maker of traffic control equipment and outdoor enclosures for electronics. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.
The acquisition spurred the need for more space in Mexico.
“With Econolite’s steady growth and the recent purchase of an additional company, it required a larger facility,” Migliori said.
Econolite has a colorful history in Southern California.
At the height of the Depression, businessmen Arthur Loomis and Charles Chase started a small toy and specialty lighting company. Leo Jennings, an electrician for the city of Beverly Hills, asked the partners if they could build a stop sign with a built-in flashing red light, controlled by a solar on-off switch.
That was the first “econolite.”
The company later became the installation contractor for General Electric Co.’s traffic signal unit. It later distributed GE’s traffic products.
Econolite moved to its Anaheim site on East La Palma Avenue in 1971. In 1978, Chief Executive Mike Doyle led a buyout of the company.
The company is a big player in traffic products. In 2002, former California attorney general Bill Lockyer filed an antitrust lawsuit against Econolite, alleging it cost taxpayers millions of dollars by artificially inflating prices for traffic lights.
