Queens company moving north - Westfair Communications

The nation”™s oldest family owned eyeglass-frames supplier plans to relocate its operations this summer from Queens to Port Chester.

Zyloware Corp. expects to move its headquarters and warehouse operations by Aug. 1 from Long Island City to 8 Slater St., one of four buildings in Port Chester”™s Midland Business Park.

New York Commercial Realty Group in White Plains brokered for the tenant a 10-year lease for 31,000 square feet of flex warehouse space in the approximately 73,400-square-foot building. The business park properties are owned by Lighthouse Real Estate Ventures Inc., of Hempstead, Long Island, and marketed by CB Richard Ellis.

James Shyer, Zyloware”™s chief operating officer, said his company is fully revamping the space, which was vacated last year by Polder Inc., a maker of housewares and kitchen products that relocated its headquarters to Oxford, Conn. Zyloware expects to employ about 75 workers in Port Chester, he said. The company currently has about 70 employees in Queens, said Shyer, and expects to retain about 75 percent of its managers and warehouse workers after the relocation to Westchester.

Shyer”™s grandfather, Joseph Shyer, founded the business in 1923 in Long Island City in a factory that sat amid potato fields. It has grown to become a global marketer with $30 million to $60 million in annual revenues, James Shyer said. The company is owned by four Shyers representing two generations of the family.

The company”™s brands include the Invincible, the first eyeglass frame made of nylon, developed by Zyloware in 1964. More than 20 million Invincible frames have been sold, according to the company. The company launched the first American designer eyewear brand in 1976 and the first eyewear collection named for a celebrity, Sophia Loren Eyewear, in 1980. More recently, Zyloware introduced its Randy Jackson Collection, a brand named after the TV producer and American Idol judge.

Zyloware closed its manufacturing facility in Queens in 1994 and now imports frames from the Far East and Italy, Shyer said. The company”™s offices and warehouse have been on the same block in Long Island City since 1923.

“It”™s a big move for us, but it”™s time,” Shyer said of the uprooting to Port Chester. “We”™re really excited. We”™ve been in business for 87 years and we feel that this move is going to help us in our expansion plans to grow this company.”