Last week Pacific Asian Enterprises, Inc. started reconstruction of a legendary 9,000-square-foot Dana Point building that will become the company’s new world headquarters.

PAE/Nordhavn Yachts´ New World Headquarters

The new state-of-the-art facility will house sales, project management, engineering, accounting, commissioning and shipping/receiving, which currently is spread out amongst three separate locations. Unifying all the departments into one space has been a long-term goal of P.A.E. ownership.

“Communications and efficiency will vastly improve by having the entire company together,” said PAE. President and owner Dan Streech. “And this will lead to a better customer experience for visiting clients.”

Last year P.A.E. was awarded a 30-year-lease of the site of the former Beach House restaurant, located just down the street from the current site of Nordhavn’s Orange County-based southwest sales office and has spent the past several months designing and reconfiguring the building to include new offices for staff, owner/guest office suites, a conference and showroom and a gallery dedicated to the history of P.A.E. and the Dana Point waterfront.

Production will continue to take place at P.A.E.’s two partner factories, Ta Shing Yacht Building Co. in Taiwan and South Coast Marine in China.

While boat sales – new construction, in particular – have been stagnant across the industry for nearly three years, P.A.E. has been able to navigate the down period through the strength of its brand. Even more encouraging: the company has seen an uptick in both new and pre-owned sales in recent weeks, perhaps an indication that the worst of the yacht buying recession is in the past. “We are eager to move forward knowing that we have room to expand as business improves in these coming months and years,” said Streech.

Work is scheduled to continue throughout the summer and Streech said he is hopeful the staff can move into its new offices in November.