Carpet Maker Buys $21M Facility

Bryon Ward of the Newport Beach office of Grubb & Ellis reports that Royalty has acquired the 372,096-sf building at 515 E. Dyer Rd. from Irvine-based RPH Industrial LLC c/o Rreef. Ward represented the buyer, with Ward and Scott Read of Grubb & Ellis' Newport Beach office representing the seller.

The transaction is unusual in that involves a buyer acquiring a Southern California building for manufacturing at a time when manufacturing jobs are leaving the state and are being replaced by distribution uses. Royalty will use the property for manufacturing and distribution. It is slated to occupy the facility in August. The company also occupies over 500,000 sf of space in nearby Irvine. Royalty was already leasing 268,500 sf of industrial space on Dyer Road in a deal reported last year by GlobeSt.com. Ward represented both the carpet maker and the building owner, Rreef of San Francisco, in that transaction. The facility is a freestanding building in Santa Ana's enterprise zone, and has expansion rights for the balance of the building.According to information from Royalty's website, the carpet maker already occupies 975,000 sf of manufacturing facilities and employs 750 workers in what the company says is California's largest independent carpet manufacturing operation. This latest expansion continues a pattern of growth that began soon after the company was founded in a small warehouse in the City of Commerce with 10 employees. Its growth produced expansions in 1969, when it remained in Los Angeles County at facilities in Dominguez Industrial Park, and again in 1973, when the carpet maker relocated to Orange County in a move to the Irvine Industrial Complex. The tremendous population growth in the US along with the continuous expansion and growth of the home building industry is constantly creating a larger marketplace for carpet sales. The company is vertically integrated, from spinning its own yarn through the manufacturing steps leading to finished carpet.