Footwear Distributor Relocates to Sylmar

Pan Pacific Design Inc., which markets and distributes athletic footwear under the Guess? brand name, has relocated from downtown Los Angeles to Sylmar.

The privately held company and its 50 employees moved into a new, 110,000-square-foot building on March 1. Pan Pacific purchased the facility in December for about $6 million, including improvements.

Company President James Moodhe said the decision to move was based on Pan Pacific’s need for more warehouse and office space and because “there’s a large labor pool out here that we could draw from as we grow.”

Pan Pacific was started in 1991 as a division of Guess?, the big apparel maker. The division was sold to Moodhe and other investors last year, and the company now licenses the Guess? name for its shoes. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Moodhe said that sales of Guess? athletic footwear totaled more than $11 million in 1992.