The creative-office design trend is making its way to the glitzy buildings next to South Coast Plaza.
Fisher & Paykel Appliances Ltd., a New Zealand-based maker of upscale home appliances, is moving its North American headquarters from Huntington Beach to Park Tower in Costa Mesa.
The designer and maker of a variety of high-end ovens, dishwashers, barbeques, refrigerators, washing machines and dryers, will be leasing about 23,000 square feet on the ground floor of the 17-story building at 695 Town Center Drive.
Park Tower is one of three high-rise office buildings owned by affiliates of C.J. Segerstrom & Sons, which is across the street from the family-run company’s South Coast Plaza. It’s also next to the performing arts complex that bears the family’s name.
Ground floor space at Park Tower that previously held a spa is being converted into Fisher & Paykel’s new home.
The move represents a step up in local visibility for the company, which had been operating out of an industrial building in Huntington Beach.
It bought locally based Dynamic Cooking Systems Inc. in 2004 for a reported $33 million and had previously manufactured products at the Huntington Beach location but moved those operations to Mexico about five years ago as part of a companywide restructuring plan.
About 50 people—including corporate executives, marketing officials, accounting and customer service employees—will make the move from Huntington Beach to Costa Mesa, according to Scott Davies, marketing manager for Fisher & Paykel’s North American operations.
The manufacturer’s new offices also mark a shift of sorts for the three high-rise buildings, which operate under the Offices at South Coast Plaza banner and serve as home to some of Orange County’s largest law, accounting and other professional services firms.
The space will be the most prominent example among the three when it comes to creative-office design, which emphasizes fewer individual offices, as well as open and collaborative workspace.
“It will be a modern, open plan,” according to Davies.
“We will be investing a lot” of time and dollars in the offices, he said.
Callison LLC, an architecture and design firm with offices in Santa Monica, is heading up the design.
Showroom
Also unique to the ground floor at the building: Fisher & Paykel will be opening a showroom on the ground floor of Park Tower running a few thousand square feet.
The showroom, open to the public, will offer a variety of cooking-related seminars and training programs, according to Davies.
“This part of Orange County has a high-end design district,” Davies said. “We’ll be in good company.”
Having Fisher & Paykel as an office and retail tenant at the building “will add to the vibrancy of the neighborhood,” said Robert Lambert, director for the Irvine office of Cushman & Wakefield Inc.
Lambert handles leasing for the nearly 1.3 million square feet of space at C.J. Segerstrom’s three high-rise buildings in Costa Mesa, along with colleagues Matthew Moore and Rick Kaplan.
Cushman & Wakefield was brought aboard as the exclusive leasing agent for Plaza Tower, Center Tower and Park Tower about a year ago.
It was the first time since 1990 that the three Segerstrom offices had used an outside leasing service, the brokerage said at the time.
Fisher & Paykel is expected to move into the new offices in late November. The showroom should open next year.
Fisher & Paykel was founded in 1934.
The U.S. operations for the appliance company were estimated to do about $300 million in sales as of a few years ago.
