Western apparel company agrees to shift its headquarters to East Bay city
SAN LEANDRO — A Western apparel company has leased a large chunk of office space in San Leandro, a deal that marks a relocation for the East Bay firm.
Ariat International, a Western-themed clothing company that was born as a pioneer in producing a “new kind of boot,” has signed a lease for nearly 81,000 square feet of office space in San Leandro Tech Campus, a big complex next to the San Leandro BART station.
The rental transaction, one of the largest office leasing deals so far during 2022 in Alameda County, was arranged through brokers Sid Ewing and Matthew Nebel, who are executives with Colliers, a commercial real estate firm.
Ariat leased 80,700 square feet at 1500 Alvarado St. in San Leandro. Ariat is relocating from Union City.
Urban Westlake, a real estate firm, developed San Leandro Tech Campus. The project is also slated to include some housing components.
With the most recent deal, San Leandro Tech Campus’ tenants now are Ariat, Ghiradelli Chocolate and Aveva, a software company.
Aveva leases the entire six-story 1600 Alvarado St. office building, which totals 132,000 square feet. That building was rented in 2016 by tech firm OSIsoft. In 2021, Aveva bought OSIsoft for $5 billion.
Ghiradelli Chocolate has leased 22,000 square feet on the top floor of the six-story 1500 Alvarado office building, which totals 132,000 square feet.
It wasn’t immediately certain when Ariat might move into its new headquarters location in San Leandro.
The move does appear to represent an expansion for Ariat. It wasn’t immediately clear how many people Ariat would employ at the new San Leandro location.
Ariat will exit its current Union City headquarters, which total 64,100 square feet, according to the PropertyShark website. Ariat did not respond to requests for a comment regarding the rental transaction.
Company chief executive officer and co-founder Beth Cross was inspired by watching the 1973 Triple Crown performance of legendary racehorse Secretariat in using Ariat as the corporate moniker when she helped found the company in 1993.
“We were the first to integrate athletic footwear technology into boots for equestrian athletes,” Cross said in a post on the company’s website.
Ariat makes boots for work activities, the outdoors, and equestrian athletics.
“Our world-class product team builds innovative and award-winning performance products for all types of outdoor and work environments,” Ariat states on its website.