Nestle USA is pulling its corporate headquarters out of Glendale and moving to Arlington County, Va., the mega-food company said Wednesday.
Nestle will begin to move into its new home base near Washington, D.C., later this year and expects to finish the relocation by the end of 2018, the company said in a statement. It has been headquartered in Glendale since 1990.
Nestle spokeswoman Edie Burge said of the 1,200 jobs in the Glendale office, 750 will be relocated to Virginia, 300 will move to Ohio, and the remaining 150 will be transferred to other Nestlé facilities, including the Purina headquarters in St. Louis where Nestle is consolidating its information technology services.
Paul Grimwood, Nestle’s chief executive, said the company considered a variety of options before settling on Arlington.
“Not only is it attractive to our current employees while offering a great talent pool for the future, but this location allows us to be closer to our business operations, our customers and other important stakeholders,” he said in a statement.
In addition to impacting jobs, the move will leave behind a chunk of space at 800 N. Brand Blvd. in Glendale, where, according to CoStar, Nestle leases 378,452 square feet.
Glendale city officials said in a statement Wednesday that Nestle did not inform them of its plans to leave and that they learned of the move from media reports.
Darlene Sanchez, Glendale’s deputy director of community development, said the city would aim to look at the bright side.
“We’re really sorry to see them leave for another city, but we see it as an opportunity to attract other business,” she said. “Glendale’s been in this position before. Four years ago we had a high vacancy of 25 percent. We’re down to 10 percent. We know how important it is to diversify our corporate makeup.”
The company will still retain a footprint in California, with nine manufacturing facilities for products including Dreyer’s Ice Cream and Purina PetCare. The company’s statement said it employs 5,500 people across the state.
Nestle isn’t the first major company to uproot its L.A. headquarters in recent years. Jacobs Engineering Inc., Toyota Motor Corp.’s North America division, and coffee maker Farmer Bros. Co. all decamped to Texas. Among the local companies that have moved to the Northern Virginia area are Hilton Hotels Corp., which relocated from Beverly Hills, and Northrop Grumman Corp., formerly in Century City.
Monday Properties, the owner of Nestle’s new office, which is in the unincorporated Rosslyn area, said in a statement that Nestle would spend $39.8 million on the relocation. Nestle will lease 206,000 square feet, less than two-thirds of its current space, with the option to expand.
Nestlé USA, owned by Nestlé S.A. in Vevey, Switzerland, generated $9.7 billion in sales in 2015.