Hovnanian Enterprises is finding a new home for itself.
The homebuilder is moving to Matawan from its Red Bank headquarters, Chairman and CEO Ara Hovnanian announced in a video message sent to colleagues and posted to redbankgreen.com.
While the current Red Bank office has been up about 11 years, Red Bank is where the late Kevork Hovnanian founded the business in 1959.
The move was sparked by “an unsolicited offer,” said Ara Hovnanian, Kevork’s son.
He did not disclose who the buyer is, but said the move was financially beneficial.
It will leave the company about $25 million to invest in homebuilding operations throughout the country and save it about $4 million yearly in occupancy costs.
The move to a leased building at 90 Matawan Road is expected to happen around New Year’s, Hovnanian said.
It was headquarters for a high-tech startup that outgrew its space, he said.
Hovnanian called the move bittersweet, since he helped design the building on West Front Street and Maple Avenue.
But the space was too much for the company’s trimmed operations, he said.
The year it was built, the company delivered more than 20,000 homes, compared with about 7,000 last year.
Hovnanian also took employees’ travel to and from work into consideration.
While the building is about 11 miles north of the current headquarters, reduced traffic should keep the time for those coming from the south about the same, and slightly decrease it for those who live north, he said.
To account for summer traffic, the office will close at 2:30 p.m. from Memorial Day to Labor Day.
