One of the city’s most prominent employers is leaving and selling its long-time former corporate headquarters.
Iwata-based Yamaha Motor Co. announced last week that it plan to relocate one of its U.S. subsidiary groups, Yamaha Motor Corporation U.S.A., from Cypress to Georgia and sell its 25-acre office campus on Katella Avenue, which has served as the company’s base for nearly half a century.
The Japanese manufacturer said it will move all of Yamaha Motor’s U.S. operations to Kennesaw, Georgia, in phases between the end of 2026 and the end of 2028.
In 1999, the company moved its marine business, which markets commercial and leisure watercraft, to Kennesaw and in 2019 shifted its motorsports division to Georgia, where it markets these products.
About 200 to 250 employees in accounting, corporate planning and Yamaha’s financial services business had remained in Cypress, according to Bob Starr, a Yamaha spokesperson.
“It made sense to do it now so we could be together,” Starr told the Business Journal. “We were fragmented since all of the business units were in Georgia.”
Buena Park-based Yamaha Corporation of America, which specializes in manufacturing musical instruments and sound gear, is not affected by this relocation. That company recently appointed Seiichi Yamaguchi as its new president. Last year, it moved into a newly built 75,263-square-foot, two-story office building at its 14-acre corporate campus in Buena Park that houses about 350 local employees.
According to CoStar, industrial sites in Cypress generally sell for about $4 million an acre, indicating the campus might be worth around $100 million.
Yamaha has tapped commercial brokerage firm Avison Young to market the three properties, which include an office, an industrial building, and a flex building, and occupy an entire city block on Katella Avenue, Holder Street, and Yamaha Way.
Trump Tariffs
This move comes as many U.S. manufacturers and supply chain companies face challenges and are restructuring amid higher costs stemming from President Donald Trump’s tariff policies.
“The market environment has changed,” said Starr. “The market for almost all power sports products has changed substantially in the last few years. That fact, coupled with the tariffs, made good sense to combine everything in terms of efficiency for our company.”
It’s unclear why Yamaha Motor cited tariffs, which are the same no matter the state.
In a statement, Yamaha Motor officials said the relocation and asset sale are part of broader efforts to improve efficiency and profitability in the U.S. market.
Yamaha Motor officials said the move is part of efforts to cut costs across the business and to create a profit model that doesn’t rely only on increasing sales.
The goal is to transform its U.S.-based company into a more resilient and robust organization capable of adapting to change, officials said in its release.
Yamaha History
Yamaha traces its roots to 1887, when founder Torakusu Yamaha repaired a broken organ at an elementary school. He pioneered the production of Western musical instruments in Japan and eventually grew Yamaha into a major multinational firm known as the world’s largest maker of musical instruments and audio gear. It trades on the Tokyo stock exchange (Tokyo: 7951)
Yamaha Motor, which was spun out from Yamaha in 1955, is also traded in Tokyo, where it has a $7 billion market cap (Tokyo: 7272).
Yamaha Motor entered the U.S. market in the 1960s and quickly expanded its presence nationwide.
Yamaha Motor acquired the Cypress property in 1978 and opened the headquarters the following year.
Cypress Headquarters
As part of the transition, the company is selling its 25-acre, 279,000-square-foot campus at 6555 Katella Ave., which has been its home for 50 years.
Starr said the campus has served as the hub of the company’s U.S. motorsports operations, with about 450 employees at its peak, but it has gradually declined as major business divisions shifted to the Southeastern U.S. over the past two decades.
City of Cypress officials lamented the loss of another major company.
In 2019, Mitsubishi Motors North America left its Cypress headquarters and relocated to Franklin, Tennessee, citing costs. Amazon later acquired the 31-acre properties as a last-mile facility.
“The City of Cypress regrets Yamaha’s decision to relocate its headquarters to Georgia,” a Cypress spokesperson said in an email to the Business Journal. “As one of the first companies to locate in the Cypress Business Park in 1980, Yamaha has been an important part of our business community for more than 40 years. We thank Yamaha for its long-standing partnership with the City and look forward to working with its management to transition to new ownership.”
The Avison Young team of Patrick Barnes, Paul Clark, Nick Slonek, and Jae Estep is leading the marketing efforts “for this rare investment and redevelopment opportunity.”
Starr said that after Yamaha Motor finds a buyer, it plans to sign a sale-leaseback to stay on the campus until Dec. 31, 2028, while the move takes place.
Avison Young officials are offering the site, dubbed “Katella 25,” on a best-offer basis.
Barnes, a principal at Avison Young, said this listing is one of the biggest infill redevelopment chances currently available in Southern California’s industrial market. (See 2025 Top Industrial Sales, page 20).
“Securing a 25-acre infill site with industrial zoning already in place represents a rare redevelopment opportunity of scale,” Barnes said.
The industrial campus is located about 12 miles from the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports, and close to major transport routes.
Low vacancy rates and strong demand for logistics and industrial space have made big development sites harder to find in the area.
