Gateway Plans to Relocate to Irvine Spectrum Complex
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Goodbye, Poway. Hello, Irvine.
Gateway Inc., the San Diego County computer maker struggling to return to profitability, is planning to move its corporate headquarters to the Irvine Spectrum business park in Orange County.
The company will lease two buildings in the complex that is home to scores of technology companies just north of the intersection of interstates 5 and 405.
The complex also is near the Irvine Transportation Center, used by Amtrak and Metrolink trains, which should help Gateway employees making long commutes, Chief Executive Wayne Inouye said in an e-mail to the company’s staff Friday morning.
Gateway spokesman David Hallisey confirmed the contents of Inouye’s e-mail but would not discuss details of the move.
Bill Rams, a spokesman for Irvine Co., the complex’s owner, said the big developer was in serious negotiations with Gateway for the space, but noted that a final agreement had yet to be signed.
Gateway said a couple of months ago that it would shift its headquarters from the San Diego suburb of Poway to Orange County, but it wasn’t clear exactly where.
Inouye became CEO of Gateway in March, when it acquired discount computer maker EMachines Inc. for $290 million, in a move to expand its retail sales channels.
Inouye had been chief executive of EMachines. He and several EMachines executives who are now part of Gateway’s senior management team live near Irvine, where EMachines was based.
The Irvine Spectrum is about 80 miles from the current Poway headquarters office, where about 550 people work. Some employees have complained of the long commute they will face -- assuming they keep their jobs.
Gateway, which at its peak in 2000 employed 24,500, said last month that it would reduce its workforce by 1,500 people in the coming months, to about 2,000 workers by year’s end. In April, the company furloughed 2,500 workers when it closed its 188 retail stores. Gateway lost $515 million in 2003.
The move to Orange County is expected in late summer.
