American Woodmark Corp. (Nasdaq: AMWD) has renewed the lease for its sprawling Anaheim base just north of the Riverside (91) Freeway, in the largest reported local industrial lease of the year.
The $1.2 billion-valued cabinetmaker recently inked a new 10-year lease for the entirety of 400 E. Orangethorpe Ave., a 675,000-square-foot building owned by Prologis Inc.
The building, on a nearly 53-acre lot and next to a half-million-square-foot facility owned by Prologis and leased to FedEx, has long been home to RSI Home Products Inc., an Anaheim kitchen and bath cabinet manufacturer started by local business exec and philanthropist Ron Simon.
American Woodmark, based in Winchester, Va., bought RSI Home in 2018 for about $1.1 billion, including the assumption of nearly $600 million in debt.
At the time of the 2018 sale, the combined company counted about $1.6 billion in annual revenue.
The Anaheim manufacturing facility is the only local base for American Woodmark.
It’s the largest industrial lease reported in Orange County this year; only a handful of deals in the area have topped 500,000 square feet over the past five years.
Bullish on OC
Randy Parker and Taylor Wood from Savills brokered the deal on behalf of the tenant. San Francisco-based Prologis, the country’s largest industrial real estate owner, was self-represented.
The deal marks a positive sign for the area’s manufacturing sector, as well as the housing and construction sector that American Woodmark serves, according to Savills officials.
“The deal was finalized right in the middle of COVID-19 in Orange County, showing that American Woodmark is bullish on its business moving forward,” said Parker, a senior managing partner at the Newport Beach office of the tenant representation firm.
American Woodmark currently employs north of 500 people in Orange County.
RSI Home Products was launched in 1989 by Simon, a Newport Beach resident and serial entrepreneur who also founded and previously owned homebuilder RSI Communities.
RSI Home had been Home Depot’s largest supplier of cabinets in North America, and its operating platform had totaled close to 3.5 million square feet around the time of its sale; it also had manufacturing and distribution locations in Texas, North Carolina, and Mexico. The company claimed to be the industry’s “lowest-cost producer, with the highest operating margins” at the time of its sale.
RSI Sales
Shortly after the sale of RSI Home Products, Simon sold RSI Communities to Newport Beach-based William Lyon Homes for $460 million.
William Lyon Homes was in turn acquired this February by Taylor Morrison Home Corp. (NYSE: TMHC) of Scottsdale, Ariz., for about $2.4 billion, including the assumption of debt.
Simon’s remaining business interests include RSI Equity Partners, which aims to invest in the building and construction-related products sectors, as well as new home building operations.
He also owns RSI Energy, a manufacturer and provider of solar energy products for homebuilders.
