Yokohama Tire to move U.S. headquarters to Santa Ana

Yokohama Tire Corp. will move its U.S. headquarters from Fullerton to Santa Ana to accommodate business growth, the company said Thursday.

The Japanese tire company signed a 10-year lease for 57,000 square feet at 1 MacArthur Place, an office building completed in 1999 near John Wayne Airport. Yokohama will occupy two-and-a-half floors of the nine-story tower after it moves in November.

“Unlike other companies that moved out of the state, we wanted to stay in California,” said Tom Masuguchi, Yokohama’s chief strategy officer.

“We looked at several buildings in multiple cities and considered many factors,” Masuguchi said. “These included layout efficiencies, cost advantages and employee-commute times. The Santa Ana location provided the best match for all our requirements now and in the future as we expand our business even further.”

Yokohama’s U.S. operations have been based for 28 years in Fullerton, where it has about 20,000 square feet of offices and a 380,000-square-foot distribution center serving the Western United States.

In July, the company announced it would move distribution operations to a newly constructed 658,000-square-foot facility in Chino by the end of the year.

Yokohama Tire Corp. is the North American sales and marketing arm of Tokyo-based Yokohama Rubber Co. Ltd., one of the world’s largest tire makers.

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