Westinghouse warehouse almost completed near insulator plant

Westinghouse Electric Co. Opens Half-Million Dollar Plant In Eastbay City

New Westinghouse Plant Here

Machinery is being moved into the new half-million dollar plant of the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing company at Landregan and Peladean streets, in the Emeryville tract, it is announced. This building will be used as an assembling plant, for which it is primarily designed, but temporarily will also provide for expansion of the San Francisco service, repair, and warehouse departments of this company. It is the second unit in a $3,000,000 building program being completed on the twelve-acre site on which a high voltage porcelain insulator plant is already in operation.

In spite of the slowing up of . . . [illegible text] . . . in many parts of the country, Westinghouse sales in the San Francisco territory have continued steadily increasing, the company states. This, coupled with central location with respect to Pacific coast and Oriental markets, and with numerous manufacturing advantages in the San Francisco by district, is responsible for the establishment of the western manufacturing center of this company in the Eastbay district.

The premier unit in this development was a high-voltage porcelain insulator plant, the first of its kind west of Chicago. This plant placed at the corner of Sixty-second and Green streets, Emeryville, was begun in January 1923, and completed about a year ago at a cost of $300,000. It manufactures insulators for high-voltage power lines. About three-fourths of the country’s available water power is in the western states and high grade porcelain insulators are an essential item in transmission of this power when developed. This plant is turning out insulators already of a slightly better grade than the parent plant in the east, it is stated.

The new assembling plant just being opened covers a ground area of 50,000 square feet and stands three stories high, a massive structure of concrete and steel, with a great open bay in the center where two railroad sidings are brought into the building. As expansion becomes necessary, two additional units each approximately as large as the present building, are to be added.

This building will eventually be used entirely for the assembling of both regular and special apparatus. For the present it will house additional warehouse and service shop facilities. Later a separate warehouse building will be constructed. The complete program calls for a special substation power plant and two additional units for the insulator plant.

The entire development will cost approximately $3,000,000 and will employ a thousand persons, it is stated. This is the manufacturing center for the Westinghouse Electric company in the west and is supplemented by large warehouses and service shops in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver and Seattle, as well as in Honolulu where the Hawaiian Electric company are Westinghouse agents.