Greenville, S.C.-based Proterra has leased a 157,000-square-foot facility at 383 S. Cheryl Lane in City of Industry to build its zero-emission battery-electric buses, many of which will end up on the streets of the San Gabriel and Pomona valleys.
The company received a $3 million grant in April from the California Energy Commission to help build out the manufacturing plant, which will design, develop and construct the firm’s new extended-range bus, the Catalyst XR.
Proterra declined to confirm the lease, saying it will announce the new plant and its location when it opens this fall. The company has previously said it planned to open the facility in City of Industry.
Average industrial asking rents in the San Gabriel Valley market were 51 cents a square foot a month in the first quarter, which would value the Proterra lease at about $960,000 a year. It was not clear how long a lease the company signed.
Proterra has thus far manufactured all of its buses in Greenville, but recent customers such as Foothill Transit and the San Joaquin Regional Transit District in Stockton, combined with the need for local service, repair and maintenance for those customers and high shipping costs, have spurred the company to open the facility.
Proterra expects to sell an estimated 424 buses from the plant and create 70 jobs, the company has said.
Foothill Transit, the primary public transit provider for the San Gabriel and Pomona valleys, ordered 13 Proterra buses in April for delivery by 2016, according to Proterra. It’s the agency’s fourth order from Proterra in five years.
In a press release announcing the grant in April, the Energy Commission said it chose the company “because zero-emission transit is a key element of the state’s policies and programs for deploying advanced transportation technologies to help address climate change, improve our clean air and reach our petroleum-reduction goals.”
Alliances
The Port of Los Angeles has reached across the water to sister cities in China and New Zealand to ally with port officials there in the spirit of joint economic development for their surrounding regions.
At the first Tripartite Summit, held earlier this month in Los Angeles, port officials from Los Angeles, Guangzhou and Auckland signed a memorandum of understanding to establish the Tripartite Ports Alliance. Ambassador Vilma Martinez, president of the Los Angeles Harbor Commission, signed the agreement along with Yuan Huahui, deputy director-general of the Guangzhou Port Authority, and Sanchia Jacobs, Auckland’s manager of global partnerships and strategy.
The ports will collaborate on investments, technologies and environmental policies; work together to encourage commercial and business opportunities between businesses and the public sector; and share best practices, according to Martinez. The overarching goal will be to boost the regional economies surrounding each port.
The backdrop for the agreement was the new Tripartite Summit, a matchmaking event among sectors, such as transportation, infrastructure development and design, retail and consumer products, and biomedical technology.
The summit was organized by the city and World Trade Center Los Angeles with support from the Los Angeles Business Council, Port of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp., Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce and the Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board.
Bigger, Better
Business is growing for Giroux Glass Inc., a downtown L.A. glass, glazing and architectural metals contractor, and so it has moved its Fresno office to a new site four times larger to handle the growth.
Giroux recently moved to a nearly 6,000-square-foot space at 5474 E. Hedges Ave., about two miles away from its former office, where it had been since 2010, the company said.
“The larger shop area will be used for fabrication, staging and storage, all in increased demand right now,” said John Smith, Fresno operations manager. The company has hired two people to help staff the office.
Moves
Venice trucking app developer Cargomatic has hired Sean Whiteley as chief operating officer. He will oversee sales, marketing and operations.
Additionally, Cargomatic co-founder Brett Parker will transition to president and chief commercial officer to focus on corporate strategy and enterprise account development, the company said in a release.
“Sean’s extensive, hands-on background in technology startups will prove invaluable to Cargomatic as we continue our mission to modernize B2B logistics,” said Chief Executive Jonathan Kessler, Cargomatic’s other co-founder.
A technology veteran, Whiteley comes to Cargomatic from his role as chief operating officer of TigerText, a Santa Monica secure mobile messaging startup.
Staff reporter Carol Lawrence can be reached at [email protected] or (323) 549-5225, ext. 237.
