Seventh Street Breaks Ground on New Facility for Huy Fong Foods

Oct. 6, 2010 - PRLog -- Irwindale, CA - In one of the largest commercial real estate projects undertaken in Los Angeles County this year, Seventh Street Development has broken ground here on a new $40 million corporate headquarters/manufacturing/warehouse facility for Huy Fong Foods, Inc., a leader in the Asian foods market, announced Principal Craig Furniss.
    Huy Fong Foods, best known for its Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce, will consolidate its operations currently housed in two separate locations totaling 232,000 square feet in nearby Rosemead, to the new 655,000 square-foot build-to-suit when it is completed in the Fall of 2011.  The new facility will be built on a 23-acre site at Azusa Canyon Road and Cypress Street. The redevelopment project is expected to eventually add 190 new jobs to the city's employment base and provide $1.5 million annually to the City of Irwindale over the next ten years in the form of taxes, fees and other payments.  
    Teaming up with Huy Fong Foods, Seventh Street Development, a privately held real estate company based in Long Beach, CA, was selected by the City of Irwindale in 2008 to develop the blighted site that had been vacant for more than 12 years.  Huy Fong Foods was attracted to Irwindale because of its favorable business climate and the availability of a site large enough to accommodate the company's current and future growth, according to Furniss.
    “The company which sells more than 20 million bottles of its popular Sriracha chili sauce a year, plans on tripling its employee base and growing its manufacturing capacity tenfold by 2016 to meet demand,” says Furniss.   “With many of its employees living in the area, it was important to Huy Fong to stay in the San Gabriel Valley, which has been its home since 1987.   Irwindale was one of the few areas able to accommodate Huy Fong's space requirement and still make financial sense from a development and user perspective,” he added.
    The California Mission style building will include 26,000 square feet of office space, 150,000 square feet of manufacturing space and 480,000 square feet of warehouse space all under one roof.
    As development manager, Seventh Street assisted Huy Fong Foods in the acquisition of the site and negotiation of a development agreement with the City, obtained necessary entitlements and CEQA clearances for the project, selected the design and construction team, and will oversee the construction of the facility.  
    Although the owners will not seek LEED certification, the project will be developed following the highest standards for high-performance, sustainable buildings. Among the sustainable building features include: a white reflective cool roof, an innovative passive ventilation system, seven percent skylights, low emissivity glass, storm water catch basins and occupancy sensing motion sensors in office and warehouse areas.  
KPRS Construction Services based in Brea, CA has been named General Contractor. The design team is led by RKZ Architects and Walden & Associates Civil Engineers.
    Huy Fong Foods is one of the largest manufacturers of Sriracha sauce in the world.  The company was founded in 1980 by David Tran, a refugee from Vietnam who named his company after the ship that carried him and his family to freedom following the collapse of South Vietnam. The remarkable success story of Huy Fong Foods, growing from a 2,500 square foot LA warehouse to one of the largest manufacturing facilities in LA County, is based its uncompromising commitment to quality in its addictively spicy chili sauce that is now known world-wide.

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About Seventh Street

Headquartered in Long Beach, Seventh Street Development http://7thsd.com is a privately-held commercial real estate development firm specializing in Southern California industrial, retail and mixed-use commercial projects.