Hitachi Anaheim Unit Moving to San Diego
A unit of Japanese consumer electronics giant Hitachi Ltd. will move from Anaheim to a vacant plant in Otay Mesa near the U.S.-Mexico border in November, taking about 100 jobs along with it.
Hitachi Home Electronics Manufacturing division is moving to a 220,000-square-foot plant less than half a mile north of the Otay Mesa border crossing, a facility that was formerly occupied by Sherwood Medical, a medical syringe company.
The move is part of a thoroughgoing reorganization of Hitachi’s TV and VCR operations in the United States, said Sean Doyle, an agent with CB Commercial Real Estate of San Diego who helped broker the deal. Hitachi has not decided yet whether to buy or lease the Sherwood Medical plant.
The plant’s principal function initially will be to test the large-screen projection televisions that are manufactured in Hitachi’s sprawling Tijuana television production plant. The projection TVs, which range in screen size from 45 to 60 inches wide, up to now have been quality-tested in Anaheim.
Hitachi announced in January that it would close its Anaheim plant by the end of 1992 and move the large-screen TV test function to San Diego County but did not then specify the exact location. Hitachi then said it was moving videocassette recorder assembly from Anaheim to plants in Malaysia and Japan to cut costs.
The new San Diego plant will also serve as production headquarters for Hitachi’s 460,000-square-foot television plant in Tijuana, where it manufactures 27-inch and 31-inch televisions. Hitachi is in the process of moving production of its larger sets to Tijuana from Japan because of U.S. television consumers’ preference for big screens.
Hitachi previously announced that it was moving manufacturing of smaller models, including 19-inch and 26-inch TVs, to Japan from Tijuana because of weaker demand for those models in the United States.
None of the 250 employees at the Anaheim plant have been laid off yet, although 25 have taken voluntary buyout severance packages, human resources manager Steve Stewart said Friday. An undetermined number of the Anaheim employees will be offered jobs in San Diego, he said, but not all can be accommodated.
Only a fraction of the San Diego facility’s floor space will be taken up with the large-screen TV testing function. Stewart said the company was unsure at this time what uses the rest of the facility will be put to.
Hitachi’s neighbors in Otay Mesa include other Japanese-owned operations, including Casio, Maxell and Sanyo.
