Patio Furniture Maker to Remain in Oxnard

Fast work by Oxnard officials helped save at least 40 Ventura County jobs at Casual Living Worldwide Inc., a patio furniture manufacturer that was being heavily wooed by Arizona redevelopment officials.

Casual Living, a privately held firm with $10 million in annual sales, has outgrown the three small buildings it occupies in Oxnard’s Channel Islands Business Center, company President Dale Boles said.

“We’ve been growing despite a general downturn in our industry,” Boles said. “We wanted to consolidate into a single plant and, at the same time, increase our total floor space.”

When the Arizona agencies learned of his needs, they offered him an attractive lease in a building in the Phoenix area, Boles said.

He said he was seriously considering the offer until Harry Ross Industries Inc., a Santa Monica industrial and commercial real estate firm, purchased a former Nabisco Foods Co. warehouse on Statham Parkway, just a short distance from the furniture maker’s present location.

Rick Ross, a principal in Ross Industries, offered to lease the 50,000-square-foot structure to Casual Living. Boles was interested, but major modifications were needed, and he was afraid that the building wouldn’t be ready by the fall, when work starts on next summer’s line of patio furniture.

“To my amazement, Oxnard’s planning officials cut red tape left and right,” Ross said. “We have properties in California, Utah, Arizona and other states, and I’ve never seen better cooperation.”

The result: Casual Living will move into the former cookie warehouse Oct. 1. And, while most of the company’s production will remain overseas, corporate headquarters and a cushion-making operation will continue in Oxnard.