Local houseware company Spectrum sets huge move

Sales growth linked partially to more home cooking during the pandemic and a desire to consolidate operations in a single facility has prompted Spectrum Diversified Design Solutions LLC of Streetsboro to sublease about 300,000 square feet of warehouse and office space at 7005 Cochran Road in Glenwillow.

Spectrum, which sells and distributes home organization products such as wire baskets and the Tovolo line of kitchen gadgets, plans to move its Streetsboro headquarters and warehouse to the new location from 675 Mondial Parkway. It also will shift operations from three other locations at NEO Parkway in Garfield Heights, 9300 Dutton Drive in Twinsburg, and 9456 Freeway Drive in Macedonia to the Glenwillow location.

Spectrum will move by mid-summer to the Glenwillow location, where it has subleased warehouse and office space from TTI Floor Care, part of Techtronic Industries Inc. of Hong Kong. TTI in 2021 shut the location to move it to a new warehouse in Anderson, South Carolina.

Paul Quinn, Spectrum chief operating officer, said the new location will have about 50,000 square feet of additional space than it currently occupies in its current multiple sites to accommodate double-digit sales growth at the company over each of the last two years.

“As people spent more time at home during the pandemic and ate out at restaurants less,” the company’s products gained in popularity, Quinn said. Spectrum decided the new location would allow it to retain most of the more than 100 staffers it would consolidate in the single site.

“Like TTI, we are a consumer products company, so the warehouse and offices are a good fit,” Quinn said, adding that they need only a few cosmetic updates. The company did not want to build a new facility because it wanted to move more quickly than that would have required.

Even so, with the tight industrial market, finding a new site required searching from Ravenna to Strongsville before the company opted for the Glenwillow location. Quinn said Spectrum was able to sublease the space for several years from TTI, although he declined to say how long.

George Pofok, who represented Spectrum with fellow Cushman & Wakefield Cresco principal Eliot Kijewski, said Spectrum was able to obtain a “below-market rent” on the sublease space, although he and other participants in the deal declined to disclose the rent specifically.

TTI was represented by Tim Breckner, a senior vice president at Colliers International.

The 458,000-square-foot structure dates from 1997 and was originally constructed for appliance maker Mr. Coffee. It later became home to Royal Appliance Manufacturing, the maker of the Dirt Devil product line. The Dirt Devil and Oreck lines were all subsequently acquired by TTI. The structure is owned by LXP Industrial Trust, a New York City-based real estate investment trust that’s publicly traded.

Pofok said TTI continues to use part of the building, and the transaction had benefited Spectrum because TTI was willing to make space available at different times to accommodate operations moving from different locations.

Unlike times past when one industrial move left space behind for a considerable time before it was reused, the slight vacancy rate in the region set off opportunities for other companies to position for the former Spectrum space.

Cresco estimates a 3.7% vacancy rate among Northeast Ohio industrial real estate. That is a striking because 3.2 million square feet of industrial space was constructed in the area in 2021, so demand is keeping up with a breakneck building pace.

“This really starts the domino effect,” Pofok said, as smaller companies already are taking steps to land the space that Spectrum plans to exit.