W.P. Carey to Finance New Rochester Facility for Celestica

Celestica Inc., a Toronto-based contract electronics manufacturer, plans to move its printed circuit board operations to a new 200,000 sf facility. The Rochester,MN site will be financed and owned by an affiliate of W.P.Carey, the New York real estate company.

Celestica is the latest among several recent transactions that W. P. Carey has completed for companies serving the Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) market, says W. Sean Sovak, executive director at W. P. Carey

The Celestica facility, which will be built by Minneapolis-based M.A. Mortenson, will consist of 200,000 square feet of office and manufacturing space on 30 acres about a half mile from the IBM’s Rochester campus. It replaces temporary quarters Celestica has occupied since buying the operation from IBM early this year.

Celestica will lease the $21.6 million building from Corporate Property Associates 14 Inc., an real estate investment trust affiliate of New York-based W.P.Carey Group, a $2.5 billion New York-based commercial real estate firm specializing in corporate properties.

The new facility will allow Celestica to expand its business by 20 to 30 percent, as well as sell to customers besides IBM, its only customer so far, says Gary Moore, general manager of Celestica’s Rochester operation.“We’re looking forward to diversifying our business,” says Moore. “It doesn’t make sense for a business like ours to have our assets tied up in real estate.”

IBM has in recent years sold off a variety of other printed circuit board factories in Austin, Texas,Charlotte, N.C., Greenock, Scotland and Bordeaux,France.