It’s being called a “trophy piece of property.” But even if every developer familiar with the chunk of vacant land next to the Burbank Airport now up for grabs is eyeing it, that doesn’t mean selling it is going to be a walk in the park. There has been bad blood between the city of Burbank and the airport for years as the two sides have tried to negotiate an agreement to build a new terminal on the former Lockheed B-6 property. And it’s threatening to slow the efforts of the broker hired to represent the airport in the land sale. Burbank city officials say Los Angeles-based Cushman & Wakefield of California, Inc. has not been providing prospective buyers with enough history on the property before they arrive at City Hall with inquiries. The airport complains the city hasn’t been receptive to developers because it has yet to complete a master plan for the property that includes non-airport-related projects. Consequently, the Burbank Airport Authority, the airport’s nine-member governing board, has asked the city to essentially try harder to cooperate with Cushman and interested parties. So, what’s a broker to do? “The reality is we are at the front end of the pre-marketing period for a very complicated piece of property,” said David Hasbrook, Cushman’s executive director and lead broker for the property. “Any time you sell a large piece of land that is suitable for a master plan development, there are larger issues that need to be addressed. But the city of Burbank has no master plan for the property for any use other than an airport terminal, so it’s complicated even further.” The airport retained Cushman in February to serve as the broker for the 80-acre trust portion of the property. Cushman, chosen from a group of 14 brokers, has a nine-month exclusive listing and will receive a sliding-scale commission on the sale. There is no set asking price for the property because, Hasbrook said, “we don’t want to preclude a purchaser from offering a price that could be higher than what we publish.” So far, only a working brochure on the property has been completed, but a detailed marketing piece is almost ready. Under a 1999 agreement with the city, the airport was required to sell the land if a final agreement over noise restrictions and other related issues could not be hammered out. The agreement also restricts the airport from now putting the terminal on the property unless the two sides end the agreement and it is considering an alternative 41-acre swath of land nearby. Getting together Following a recent meeting between Hasbrook and city and airport officials, Burbank has promised the airport that a Cushman representative would be present at all future meetings with potential developers or buyers. “It’s been our experience that prospective purchasers, particularly developers, have been interested in knowing the city’s perspective on development of the property,” said Hasbrook. “But we have concerns that some of those prospective parties have been walking away with very little to go on.” Hasbrook said there are roughly 20 potential entities interested in the property, but he declined to identify any of them. He said it’s unlikely that any prospective buyer or developer would know all the ins and outs of the history on the land, given its complexity. Burbank City Manager Robert “Bud” Ovrom said Cushman needs to make that information available. “We’ve had would-be buyers come in here and they don’t even know what the size of the land is or the zoning,” Ovrom said. “So we think they need to do a better job of presenting the property.” But even Ovrom said that, for Cushman, being stuck between two “gorillas” cannot be easy. “What’s a developer to do when there is all this history on a piece of property, and such a complicated setup?” he asked. Airport Executive Director Dios Marrero agreed a master plan for alternative use on the property would make things easier for potential developers. He said neither the airport nor the city ever really considered one because “both sides probably concur it is the best place for a new terminal building.” In the meantime, he said, developers inquiring about the property have walked away from the city “skeptical and discouraged.” “We know that every developer is looking at this property,” said Marrero. “But I think that what’s happening is that neither agency, either the city or the airport, really envisioned that they would ever find themselves where they are finding themselves today.” The airport bought 130 acres from Lockheed in 1999 for roughly $85.5 million. It set aside a 50-acre buffer zone, and put the remaining 80 acres in trust for the proposed terminal. Of the 80 acres, 58 are in Burbank and 22 in Los Angeles. All but 15 acres are zoned for industrial and manufacturing use. The remainder is restricted to airport-related uses. Not all or nothing The mixed-use potential of what Hasbrook called “a trophy piece of property” presents further complications for Cushman, albeit not completely impossible ones to overcome. And Hasbrook said he is not ruling out selling the land piecemeal. “We are looking for buyers for all or portions of the property,” said Hasbrook. “It makes it complicated from the standpoint of understanding how deep the market is for any particular use that might be applied to the property, but at the same time, it’s positive that it’s flexible, because it allows a developer to be flexible.” Julie Gertler is president of the Los Angeles-based Consensus Planning Group, which provides community relations support for highly controversial commercial and governmental projects, including the plan to complete a rapid transit system from North Hollywood to Warner Center. She said Cushman must acknowledge the potential roadblocks, including public opposition to developers’ concepts, but she also suggested that Cushman curry favor with both expansion oppositionists and proponents, provided it includes them in the process. “You can’t just lay on a project and say this is way better than the airport,” Gertler said. “You have to engage the activists early in the process. But, if this is well managed, the people who have successfully prevented airport use there so far could become supportive of another kind of development.” “I think the history of bad blood between the city and the airport is already a roadblock,” Gertler said. “So the interested parties should understand the history and what is likely to go over and, if they have something different in mind, recognize that it’s going to be a hard road.” Hasbrook insisted he and partner Matt Hargrove, senior director for Cushman, know what they are up against. He noted the company’s successful completion of two prominent but complicated Valley development deals: the 1994 sale of the 73-acre former General Motors Plant in Van Nuys, now part retail power center and part industrial park, and the development of a 680,000-square-foot industrial park just west of the Van Nuys airport. “This is common operating procedure for us and we don’t envision this as being a difficult process,” said Hasbrook. But, of course, there’s more. While the airport appears to be aggressively moving forward with its plans to sell the property, there is some room for speculation that terminal talks with the city are not over. Ovrom has said the city and the airport have the power to end the 1999 agreement, the B-6 property is roughly double the size of the site now being considered for the new terminal, and both sides have already spent millions in and out of court trying to reconcile their differences. But if there is a bluff to be called, Marrero declined to call it. “Unfortunately, I think there is just too long of a history of failure to come up with a successful resolution,” he said.
