Tejon Ranch Co. announced that it has sold 17.1 acres of land on the east side of the Tejon Ranch Commerce Center to Scannell Properties for an undisclosed price.
Scannell, a real estate developer, will build a 270,000-square-foot manufacturing facility on the site for Rialto-based Plant Prefab, a maker of pre-fabricated housing.
The new factory will serve Prefab’s first automated facility and regional production hub. It will be built to efficiently make custom-prefabricated panelized and modular building components. The hub will allow for the full industrialization of Plant Prefab’s patented Plant Building System, which combines advanced engineering with specialized plant panels and plant modules to build custom housing 20 to 50 percent faster than traditional building methods.
“The Tejon Ranch Commerce Center is an outstanding location – with its efficient access to the interstate and strategic location between Los Angeles and the Bay Area, combined with the efficiencies that will be driven by the state-of-the-art facility, Plant Prefab will be able to expand its reach to the entire Western U.S.,” Jacob Holdeman with Scannell Properties said in a statement. “They are establishing their flagship facility in a location that represents a strong value proposition when compared to the Inland Empire and joining an area that is expected to continue growing for decades.”
Plant Prefab’s design and estimating teams are now engaging projects for the new facility, which expects to begin production in January 2023. The company expects to replicate its hub-and-spoke production model, allowing it to scale efficiently to meet demand across urban infill markets in other regions.
Joseph Rentfro, Lebec-based Tejon Ranch’s executive vice president of real estate, said, “Along with Kern (County), which awarded Plant Prefab an incentive under the Advance Kern Initiative, we look forward to welcoming this innovative company to Tejon Ranch, as we share their commitment to helping address California’s housing crisis in an efficient, sustainable way.”
Shares of Tejon Ranch (TRC) closed Friday at $18.59 per share, down 10 cents a fraction of a percent, on a day when the Dow fell nearly 1.5 percent.