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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Airport Files Lawsuit Over Parking Garage

Airport Files Lawsuit Over Parking Garage By JACQUELINE FOX Staff Reporter The Burbank Airport commission is suing a local developer that is building a public parking garage on 30 acres near the airport formerly owned by Lockheed Martin Corp. The suit, says one Burbank city official, is just the most recent example of what he calls the airport’s “bullying tactics” against the business community. Airport officials say they are simply exercising their land use rights under the law. The suit, filed against Zelman Development Co. Oct. 15, seeks to block the company from including a portion of land that leads to the airport’s entry way in the parking lot plans. Zelman president Ben Reiling wants to turn the easement from the old Lockheed site to the airport into a passageway for his parking garage customers. Airport officials say the easement should not be included in Zelman’s plans because it traditionally was not used for airport access. “This is a classic case of property rights having to do with access,” said airport spokesman Victor Gill. “Lockheed had only one point of entry to the airport property.” Reiling declined to comment on the suit or confirm rumors that his company intends to file a countersuit against the airport. However, some in the business community believe the latest dispute between the airport and Reiling has more to do with money than land use. Reiling, also the developer of the $200 million Empire Center on Lockheed’s former Skink Works site, had hoped to build a 630,000-square-foot industrial park on the land near the airport. He changed those plans in August of 2001, however, when lending for industrial projects took a downturn. The parking lot will cost Reiling $7 million. The return on his investment will come fast because, as Burbank City Manager Robert “Bud” Ovrom said, parking lots are “little cash registers.” And it’s Zelman and the city, not the airport, that will be ringing the cash register: The city of Burbank gets 10 percent in tax revenue for each car parked in airport lots. And every customer that uses Reiling’s lot is one more that won’t be using an airport-owned lot. One way to limit the loss is to limit access. Gill agreed there is “a potential for strong revenue earnings” at Reiling’s lot, but declined to say money was the key reason for blocking the entryway access. Ovrom disagrees. In an Oct. 22 memo to the Burbank City Council about the Zelman suit, Ovrom wrote, “The airport has now systematically pissed off some very well-known and respected people in the business community.” One of them is Lew Wolfe, whose firm Media Aviation had several leaseholds on airport property, including the Burbank Airport Hilton. Earlier this year the airport reclaimed a chunk of property owned by Wolfe for “airport use,” which it has the right to do under federal guidelines. Wolfe exercised his right to sell the land occupied by tenants involved in aviation to the airport. He would not disclose terms of the agreement, but claims the airport undercut its value by about $4 million. “It’s the airport’s land, and they have the right to do what they want,” said Wolfe. “But we could no longer service our tenants at the airport at the same rental rates as we could before because our income came down.” Gill said Wolfe simply “made a deal and didn’t like the terms he agreed to.” “Part of the expressed terms of our agreement with (Wolfe) included provisions for the airport to take back land at any time,” he said.

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