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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

When One Door Closes, Another Opens for Sperry Van Ness

As you probably already know (that is if you are, as you should be, signed up for the Business Journal’s e-news updates), Sperry Van Ness announced they are closing their Woodland Hills office. Also closing are all of the other Southern California offices, with the exception of the West L.A. operation, into which the Woodland Hills, Carlsbad, Ontario, Irvine and San Diego brokerages will be folded. The move comes just six months after the operations of the region were acquired by Guardian Management LLC of Portland, Ore. At the time, Guardian President Tom Brenneke said the move was designed to “strategically expand Guardian’s geographical reach.” That expansion, according to Jeff Albee, vice president of Sperry Van Ness who headed the Woodland Hills operation, had more to do with acquiring good people with local knowledge, not desks and signage. “Sperry Van Ness calls us advisors, not brokers,” said Albee. “That’s for a reason.” The company already uses a variety of Internet-based systems to support its advisors. “A lot of our systems are web-based,” he said. “”We have all this information on strategies and trends, and experts commenting on it that I can absorb, and add to it my local market knowledge and you know I am sometimes doing it on my laptop in my easy chair at home on a Sunday afternoon or a Friday night.” Albee expressed concerned that the move will be perceived as purely negative, with pundits wondering whether the company is on the ropes; and he knows that some of their more traditional clients will find it hard to accept that the lack of an office does not signal a lack of ability. That’s changing, though, and Albee believes that many clients will take the change in stride. “They don’t want me to impress them with my big office; they want my opinion,” he said. “They want me to have lots of information but also to be able to present it properly.” All 13 of the advisors on the formerly Woodland Hills-based team have accepted the change, said Albee while two administrative staff were laid off. “What the advisors staying on with Sperry Van Ness will do, they’ll work via the Internet and work web-based and use the Brentwood office for a lot of their administration,” he added. “A lot of the stuff is dealt with via the computer so we can request work to be done and more people can use the research department so people can specialize.” Big Grocery Lease Stevenson Real Estate Services of Glendale announced the negotiation of a $16.2 million lease in Pasadena. Dave Maron, a partner in Stevenson, represented the owner of the property at 603-605 South Lake Avenue. The 16,000-square-foot-space, formerly a Wild Oats store, will now be occupied by a Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market as soon as a $4.5 million improvement project is completed in June. The tenant was represented by Pacific Retail Properties. City Building Purchase The City of Los Angeles spent $3.5 million to purchase a 22,156-square-foot office building in Van Nuys which already houses some of the local operations of the Housing Authority. George Stavaris and Darren Cline of Grubb & Ellis’ North Los Angeles office represented the seller, a private party, while Cathy Scullin of NAI Capital Commercial represented the City in the deal. Scullin said that the Section 8 Housing program administered through the Authority will relocate from leased space in Panorama City to occupy the entire first floor of the Van Nuys property. Quick Turnaround in Calabasas A 18,371-square-foot building in Calabasas sold for nearly $4,000,000 just weeks after being put on the market. Robert D. Erickson and Marc Spellman of Lee & Associates represented property owner Arden Realty in the transaction. It is one of four buildings in the Calabasas Commerce Center on the market. The new owner, Malcolm Abrams LLC, was represented in the deal by Told Partners. Nice End to a Slow Year To wrap up their year, NAI Capital brokers J. Richard Leyner and Cal Menzer closed two deals valued at $3.35 million. First, Leyner, Menzer and Gary Morris, assisted nonprofit New Directions for Youth in purchasing an 11,600-square-foot office building in North Hollywood. Sellers Hugo and Ariana Cuevas were represented by MBIA, Inc. New Directions for Youth will move its Van Nuys office to the new location. Then, Leyner and Menzer represented Sixth and Union, LLC in an investment purchase of a 229,740-square-foot industrial building in Chandler, Arizona for $1.5 million, Multi-Family Sale James Bekker and William and Clark Everitt of Investment Real Estate Associates of Encino transacted the sale of an 8-unit apartment building near Westwood for $3,275,000. The $409,375-per-unit price was described by the brokers as being the full asking price. The IREA team represented the seller, a private trust. While Paul Kenworth of Charles Dunn Company represented buyer Abraxis BioScience, Inc. Staff Reporter Linda Coburn can be reached at (818) 316-3123 or at [email protected] .

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