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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Real estate column

SHELLY GARCIA Staff Reporter With the ink barely dry on its deal to acquire a 155,000-square-foot retail site in Warner Center, J.H. Snyder Co. already has leased about 65 percent of the shopping center. The Warner Marketplace, as it’s called, will be located at the site of a former Rockwell International Corp. manufacturing building at the northeast corner of Victory Boulevard and Canoga Avenue. Snyder closed on the deal, which outside sources described as a $13 million land purchase, last week, but the company has been working for months to line up a select list of tenants. According to Cliff Goldstein, a partner with the Los Angeles-based company, the tenants will include The Good Guys, which will lease a 28,000-square-foot prototype store on two stories targeted to the high-end electronics market; Bed Bath & Beyond, with a two-story, 42,000-square-foot store; and Borders Books & Music, which will have a 25,000-square-foot shop. Goldstein said the company has received signed letters of intent for the balance of the shopping center. He declined to name those potential tenants. The marketplace will be elaborately landscaped with a lot of detailing on the building facades. Goldstein said the limited availability of land for retail centers, along with the demographics of Woodland Hills and the West Valley and its proximity to Topanga Plaza and the Woodland Hills Promenade shopping centers, made the development especially attractive to the retailers who have signed on. Snyder will begin grading in coming weeks, and the stores should open late in the first quarter of 1999. Trillium gets new manager CalPers and Commonwealth Pacific Capital Management Co., a division of Commonwealth Partners, have formed a joint venture that will own and manage two San Fernando Valley properties. The newly formed company, Fifth Street Properties, will take over the management of the Trillium in Warner Center and the Westa building in Encino, which had been owned by CalPERS, the state employee pension fund. Fifth Street Properties will have a capitalized value of $500 million, according to Brett Munger, chief financial officer of Commonwealth Partners. Munger said Fifth Street, which will take over the role of Western region office portfolio management in the venture, expects to expand its holdings through acquisitions and development. The company will specialize in class-A office properties. “This gives us the capital we need for buying additional assets and doing additional development in the area,” Munger said. The deal was completed July 1. Industrial strength Cabot Industrial Trust in Boston has acquired a six-building portfolio of industrial properties from Pozzo Development in Glendale, according to Craig Peters and Derek Graham, senior vice presidents at CB Richard Ellis Co., who represented the buyer and seller. The portfolio includes three freestanding buildings in Simi Valley and three buildings located in the Anza Drive Business Center, a 20-building development in the Valencia Commerce Center. The combined square footage for the properties is 114,000. The property, which sold in the $9 million range, is 100 percent leased. The tenants include PSI Bearings, Hughey & Phillips, Growing Families International and Northridge Moving and Storage in the Simi Valley location; and Classic Wire Cuts Co. and Creative Perspectives Plus in the Valencia sites. Also in the Valencia Commerce Center, Puritan Quartz Inc., a pharmaceuticals manufacturer, has leased a 52,000-square-foot building. The building is one of three under construction by Borstein Enterprises, Santa Monica. The other two properties are a 105,900-square-foot building and a 63,716-square-foot facility. All three are scheduled for completion in August or September. Peters and CB’s Doug Sonderegger represented both parties. Facelift for bakery Sports Tutor Inc., makers of throwing machines used to practice tennis, baseball and other sports, closed escrow on the purchase of the former Oroweat Bakery in North Hollywood, said Bill Rombeau, the firm’s president. The purchase price for the 57,000-square-foot structure was $1.6 million. Entenmann’s Inc., an East Coast-based baking goods company, had owned the bakery, which had been vacant for several years. Sports Tutor plans to renovate the building and move its 20 employees to the site. The company will lease the remaining 30,000 square feet. “We needed more space,” Rombeau said of the move. News and notes Howard Anderson Co., a titles and optical special-effects company for feature films, signed a lease for 12,000 square feet of space in the Hewlett Packard building in North Hollywood. The company, with about 30 employees, moved from the Universal Studios lot. Hector Bitar, controller for the firm, said the company had looked in Burbank to stay close to the entertainment industry. “But working with the mayor’s (Office of Economic Development in L.A.) was a lot easier (than finding space in Burbank),” Bitar said. The Hewlett Packard building was originally constructed in 1986 by the company for which it is named, and was acquired by Arden Realty Inc. this year. Construction has begun on the 200,000-square-foot headquarters for Ricon Corp. in the Panorama City industrial center under development by Voit Cos. The company had originally contracted for a 150,000-square-foot building, according to Ross Thomas, partner at Van Nuys-based Delphi Business Properties, who represented Ricon in the transaction, but later expanded its requirements. The $12 million project is the first to begin at the 65-acre site of the former General Motors plant. Ricon will be moving from Pacoima when construction is completed at the end of the year.

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