Alvarado Brand Guidelines: Chino Turnstiles Since 1956, Part of dormakaba Since 2019

A Southern California maker of turnstiles and gates.

Alvarado is an American maker of turnstiles, pedestrian gates and the hardware that moves people through building lobbies, stadium gates and shop entrances. The company says it was founded in 1956, and the Swiss access group dormakaba gave the same year when it announced its purchase of the business in 2019. Its legal name is Alvarado Mfg. Co., Inc., and its main office and factory are in Chino, California.

The company describes its work in four groups. Secured Entry Control covers optical turnstiles, full-height turnstiles, waist-high turnstiles, pedestrian gates and security revolving doors for offices, data centres, government buildings and campuses. Sports and Entertainment covers admission gates, ticket-reading pedestals and the software that runs them. Asset Protection covers corner guards, floor bumpers, posts and bollards for supermarkets and warehouses, and Crowd Control covers retail turnstiles, rope-and-belt stanchions and post-and-rail queuing systems.

The company says it “has provided public entry products since its founding,” and its retail and warehouse lines sit beside its office turnstiles on the same website. In a 2016 supplier note in Campus Rec Magazine, Alvarado described itself as an established, U.S.-owned turnstile manufacturer with a fully staffed technical department, and said that a facility in Southern California housed design, manufacturing and distribution.

The company’s current line, on its own website, is “Access the Exceptional.”

Lobby lanes, stadium gates and ticket software.

In office lobbies, Alvarado’s main line is the optical turnstile. Its website lists the SU5000, which it describes as having a stainless-steel exterior; the SU3000, with motorised drop arms; the compact SU4500; and the SU2000, which works without physical barriers. It also lists the Argus range in 40, 60 and 80 versions, which it says reflects “a focus on European design and engineering,” and the Argus V60, which it calls its most compact optical turnstile. Argus is also a dormakaba name: in June 2019 Australasian Leisure Management reported that dormakaba had launched a new Argus barrier range, led by the compact Argus 40.

For outdoor sites the company offers full-height turnstiles in three types, named by where they go: the MST for perimeters, the CLST for covered transitions between outside and inside, and the CPST for interiors. It also sells security revolving doors under the SRD name. These are described on the company website by placement and finish, and we give them that way.

Alvarado’s second public face is the stadium gate. In March 2016 Australasian Leisure Management reported that Alvarado and the ticketing company Ticketek had worked together for more than ten years, and that about 30 Australian venues used a joint Ticketek and Alvarado set-up, including the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the Sydney Cricket Ground and Adelaide Oval. The report described Alvarado’s GateLink10 software reading tickets printed at home, on phones, on wristbands and on plastic cards, with admission pedestals, waist-high admission turnstiles and handheld validation terminals at the gate. Recent work at the time, the magazine said, included upgrades at the MCG and at Hobart’s Blundstone Arena.

The company’s own figures for that business are large: it says GateLink10 is installed in more than 200 locations and that its customers include NBA, MLB and NASCAR teams, many ticketing companies and most of the largest stadiums in Australia and New Zealand. Those are Alvarado’s claims, and we give them as such.

Entrance control as a category.

Entrance control is a quiet corner of the building trade. Its makers sell turnstiles, speed gates, security doors and barriers to the people who plan office lobbies, stations, airports and sports grounds, and they tend to present themselves through installations rather than through logos: a row of glass gates in a tower foyer, a line of fare gates in a metro hall, a car-park barrier at a terminal.

The products fall into a few families. Glass speed gates, which open a pair of panels for each authorised person, are shown in office lobbies; full-height turnstiles, with rotors that reach above head height, are marketed for site perimeters and stadiums; mass-transit gates line metro and rail stations; and revolving security doors and portals are offered for high-risk sites. In 2026 ASSA ABLOY summed up one maker’s range as speed gates, mass transit gates and security revolving doors, which covers most of that spread.

Case studies carry much of the marketing. Gunnebo’s press releases describe speed gates fitted in Shenzhen’s Galaxy Twin Towers in 2023, and Automatic Systems’ own timeline reads as a list of metro networks, from Manila in 1983 to Stockholm in 2007. Public buyers leave a record of their own: in 2023 the Brussels transport operator STIB awarded the maintenance of the access gates in its metro and premetro stations to Automatic Systems, according to an EU contract notice.

The trade meets at security fairs. Security Essen, in Germany, held its 2026 edition and has announced the next for September 2028; Intersec, now called Intersec Global, is held in Dubai under Messe Frankfurt, with its next edition set for January 2027. Ownership is consolidating too: in August 2026 ASSA ABLOY agreed to buy Gunnebo Entrance Control, in a deal expected to close in the fourth quarter of the year.

A Swiss owner, a California factory.

The company changed hands in 2019. On 27 June 2019 dormakaba, the Swiss group formed by the 2015 merger of Kaba and Dorma and based in Rümlang near Zurich, according to English Wikipedia, announced that it had signed an agreement to buy Alvarado Manufacturing Co. Inc. of Chino. Its media release called Alvarado “a leading manufacturer of physical access solutions in North America,” listed speed gates, turnstiles and other admission devices among its products, and gave its workforce as about 90 people. It said the deal was expected to close in the third quarter of that year, and that the terms would not be disclosed.

A day later Australasian Leisure Management carried a statement from Alvarado that its management, sales and support teams and product lines would all be kept, and reported that after the purchase Alvarado would continue to operate and manufacture at its facility in California. Alvarado’s own website now says that in 2019 it “joined dormakaba Group,” and its home page calls dormakaba a source of “added resources and support.”

Where the products are made is, on the company’s account, still Chino: its site lists the Chino address as both main office and manufacturing, describes a Southern California facility that handles in-house design, production, assembly and quality testing, and refers to “U.S.-manufactured products.” That is the company’s claim; the 2019 report that manufacturing would continue in California is the independent record.

For a design guide, Alvarado shows how a regional factory brand can keep its own name, catalogue and voice inside a much larger group, and how one maker can present a polished glass lobby lane and a rugged stadium gate under the same mark. Compare dormakaba, its owner, and Automatic Systems, another maker of lobby and transport gates. For this guide we use a deep teal, a warm sand and a copper accent with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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