It took a $75,000 grant to convince Kelly-Moore Paints to pack up its Bay Area home of 77 years and move its headquarters to Texas.
Kelly-Moore received the go-ahead for the economic inducement from the City of Irving to move its corporate hub to 500 East John Carpenter Freeway near Dallas-Fort Worth, the San Francisco Business Times reported. Its new headquarters will take up 15,000 square feet.
The agreement says Kelly-Moore must move from its 13-acre home at 1390 El Camino Real in San Carlos to the Dallas-Fort Worth area by the end of next year.
As part of the deal, Kelly-Moore is expected to receive a $75,000 economic development grant. In exchange, the firm must create 30 new, full-time jobs with an average salary of $100,000.
Kelly-Moore had moved its manufacturing operations to Hurst, Texas, in 2017. Kidder Mathew claims it took six years to sell the firm’s San Carlos headquarters to an unnamed buyer for an undisclosed price.
“Since centralizing our multiple manufacturing facilities in Hurst, Kelly-Moore has enjoyed all that the North Texas community offers, and we look forward to increasing our engagement with the local community,” said Kelly-Moore CEO Charles Gassenheimer in a prepared statement.
Gassenheimer said relocating the company’s corporate headquarters nearby would enable “even better production and innovation.”
Kelly-Moore, acquired by an affiliate of Miami-based Flacks Group in October, has more than 1,200 employees and 157 stores nationwide. It reports annual revenues of more than $340 million.
The paint company joins other industrial companies moving out of California to Texas. In December 2021, Elon Musk took Tesla from its Palo Alto home in the Silicon Valley to Austin. In December 2020, Oracle moved its hub from Redwood City to Austin. At the same time, Hewlett Packard moved its executive HQ from San Jose to Houston. And in 2020, real estate brokerage CBRE moved its corporate offices from Los Angeles to Dallas.
— Dana Bartholomew
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