The machinery-moving company that is perhaps best known for maneuvering the Space Shuttle Endeavour through the streets of Los Angeles two years ago has found a new home.

Dunkel Brothers Machinery Moving Inc., which specializes in the rigging, transportation and relocation of heavy machinery, purchased a vacant industrial building on 12 acres at 14555 Alondra Blvd. in La Mirada last month for $21.9 million. The nearly 240,000-square-foot building, which had in the past been occupied by housewares manufacturer Kittrich Corp., was sold in an off-market deal by Chicago self-storage developer Heitman.

The moving company was forced to vacate its previous headquarters – also in La Mirada – after the California Department of Transportation purchased the facility to make way for a project to widen the 5 freeway.

Clyde Stauff, senior executive vice president for Colliers International, represented the buyer in the deal. He said Dunkel Brothers searched for two years in the tight L.A. industrial market for a replacement property before coming across the former Kittrich site. Heitman had been planning to demolish the outdated manufacturing building to build a bigger state-of-the-art distribution facility. But the development company halted those plans after receiving an offer it couldn’t refuse from Dunkel Brothers.

“To find this particular off-market building at the right price and timing to accommodate Dunkel Brothers’ requirement took a lot of thought and research, since no obvious solution was available,” Stauff said. “With the industrial market experiencing very low vacancy and extremely limited purchase opportunities, we knew it was necessary to find a unique solution.”

The moving company plans to renovate the existing building to suit its needs.

Chuck Wilson of Colliers also represented the buyer in the deal.