With the lease officially signed in the fourth quarter of 2016, Brea-based AST Sportswear Inc. has finally moved into the former American Apparel facility in Hawthorne.
The 95,000-square-foot, two-story facility was previously used as a manufacturing dye house for bankrupt American Apparel. The company, which filed for bankruptcy in October 2015 and then again in November of 2016, was purchased by Gildan Activewear Inc. Montreal-based Gildan agreed to purchase American Apparel for $88 million, which included the company’s intellectual property and some of its equipment.
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“In acquiring these assets and the additional investments planned at this facility for the future, the company believes it will be able to bring virtually all of its dyeing volume in-house,” Abdul Rashid, AST’s chief operating officer in a statement.
AST Sportswear said that the move will add more than a 120 manufacturing jobs to its payroll.
“This is a great manufacturing/dye house facility and we were glad that AST Sportswear arrived immediately and seamlessly to backfill the space following the departure of American Apparel,” Steve Bohannon, senior director with Cushman & Wakefield’s industrial brokerage group, which represented the landlord in the transaction, said in a statement.
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AST Sportswear has also purchased American Apparel’s equipment, reportedly including machinery related to fabric dyeing and finishing, along with industrial dyers, compressors, and boilers, according to Bohannon.
Manufacturing and trade reporter Shwanika Narayan can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @shwanika.
