CHATSWORTH : Software Firm to Move to Simi Valley

A 200-employee software distributor will move from Chatsworth to Simi Valley, making up for Simi Valley’s loss of a 200-employee aquarium manufacturer that plans to move five miles west to Moorpark, Simi Valley officials said Thursday.

SoftKat, a national and international distributor of computer software with more than $100 million in annual sales, has announced that it will move from Chatsworth to Simi Valley about Feb. 1.

Earlier this week, Aquaria Inc., a manufacturer of live-seafood-holding tanks and aquarium filtration equipment, announced that it would move from Simi Valley into a vacant office building in Moorpark early next year.

SoftKat decided to move to Simi Valley mainly for financial reasons. The company needed more space and commercial real estate is about 20% to 30% cheaper in Simi Valley than in the San Fernando Valley, said Bob Kahn, vice president of CB Commercial Real Estate in Sherman Oaks.

SoftKat officials said they are looking forward to having more space when they move from their 72,000-square-foot building in Chatsworth to their new 96,850-square-foot facility on Royal Avenue in Simi Valley.

But some employees will probably quit rather than commute to Ventura County, said Don Helfstein, SoftKat’s vice president of marketing services.

“Some people may not elect to go because of the drive,” he said.