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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

A Look Back and Forward for Industry Sectors

ADVERTISING, MARKETING & PUBLIC RELATIONS 2011 Highlights • Woodland Hills-based online advertising firm ReachLocal continued its expansion with new offices in Germany and Australia; it had a presence in 11 international and 46 North American markets as of year-end. The company acquired a daily deals site, DealOn.com for $10 million in February, but by year-end announced it was leaving the online coupon business. • ValueClick Inc., the online marketing company, moved to grab a piece of the growing mobile advertising business with the $70 million purchase of Greystripe Inc. • Search Engine Optimization companies in the Valley were among the region’s fastest-growing companies last year. Bruce Clay Inc., National Positions and Seed Corn Advertising all recorded revenue gains in excess of 50 percent. This year: • Encino-based Inter/Media Group of Companies plans to move its headquarters to Woodland Hills in March with the purchase of two buildings on Clarendon Street. • Expect continued growth in online and mobile advertising, especially through online video, even as firms retrench from print media and low-margin online businesses such as search engine advertising. • Expect newcomers to continue to try their hand in the daily deal space, even as ReachLocal exits the market. AEROSPACE 2011 Highlights • Northrop Grumman begins production of the fuselage of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter in Palmdale using the company’s most advanced assembly line with automated guide vehicles and a robotic system completing interior and exterior drilling. • Wesco Aircraft Holdings Inc. in Valencia raised $315 million with the initial public offering of its stock in August. • Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne in Canoga Park sees the end of an era with the final mission of the space shuttle for which the company built and maintained the main engines. This year • Area suppliers to military programs keep close watch on federal budget to see which programs will continue to be funded. • Testing continues on SpaceShipTwo, a sub-orbital space vehicle designed and built for Virgin Galactic by Scaled Composites, which is headquartered at the Mojave Air & Space Port. ANTELOPE VALLEY 2011 Highlights • Downtown Lancaster continues to evolve into a destination point with the opening of a new movie theater in August. • The City of Palmdale fell short in its attempt to gain control of Site 9 from Los Angeles World Airports to develop the property for aerospace use. • The Spaceship Company, a joint venture between Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic to build sub-orbital space vehicles, opens at the Mojave Air & Space Port. This year • Solar projects near completion in Lancaster and in unincorporated areas. • Construction expected to begin on a boutique hotel in downtown Lancaster, the latest project by developer Scott Ehrlich. AUTOMOTIVE 2011 Highlights • Several dealerships made changes to their operations: Galpin Subaru in Santa Clarita opens in the former building of the dealer’s Saturn showroom. Keyes Automotive re-opens its Mercedes-Benz dealership in a new, expanded building. • Galpin Ford continues its run as the largest Ford dealership by volume in the world by selling more than 5,000 cars in 2010. • Honda Performance Development in Valencia pushes its brand awareness in support of amateur racing. This year • General Motors is expected to move its training facility to Glendale after more than 50 years in Burbank. • Market research firm J.D. Power & Associates is forecasting a strong year for car sales, with an 8.7 percent increase to 13.8 million units from the previous year. AVIATION 2011 Highlights • Fractional aircraft firm Net Jets coming to Van Nuys Airport in a new hangar to be built by Maguire Aviation. • Final approval given for a lease for The Park at Van Nuys, a development at Van Nuys Airport strictly for piston aircraft. • Passenger numbers remain down at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank. The airport had a 3.7 percent decrease in the first 10 months of 2011 when compared to the same period in 2010. This year • Van Nuys Airport and federal officials expected to continue process to determine location for a new control tower. • After an absence of more than five years, customs officials expected to return to Van Nuys Airport to clear passengers on private international flights. • A bill sponsored by Rep. Howard Berman to address helicopter noise remains pending in Congress. BANKING/FINANCE 2011 Highlights • Bank of America closes the Thousand Oaks, Westlake Village and Agoura Hills offices of its correspondent lending division resulting in the elimination of nearly 800 positions. Many of those employees would remain with the bank in other divisions. • Consolidation took place among community banks serving the greater Valley region. Grandpoint Bank acquired First Commerce Bank in Encino; Ventura County Business Bank, with a branch in Westlake Village, merged with Royal Business Bank; and California United Bank started the year with its acquisition of California Oaks State Bank and ended the year with the acquisition of Premier Commercial Bancorp. • Credit unions experience a surge in popularity as the Occupy Wall Street movement targets large national bank chains for their role in the recession. This year • A Responsible Banking ordinance remains before the Los Angeles City Council that would track community investment by banks. • The Valley Economic Development Center accelerates a microloan program to get money to small business owners. BURBANK 2011 Highlights • Wal-Mart announces it will open a store in a vacant retail space at the Empire Center. • The Pointe office tower in the Media District begins to bring in tenants, including DC Comics and Outlook Amusements, after going empty following its 2009 completion. • The city extends its development agreement with Warner Bros. Entertainment for 15 years to guide any new building on the studio lot. This year • Prime retail and restaurant space in the downtown area is expected to begin to fill with new tenants, including a Gap Factory store, which replaces a former bookstore. • The city’s hotels are slated to begin a push toward marketing the city as a destination for visitors following the approval of the Tourism Business Improvement District by the city council. • The International Academy of Film and Television plans to relocate to the city’s South San Fernando Redevelopment Area from Venice. EDUCATION 2011 Highlights • State and local funding for California community colleges fell by $360 million. For schools like Glendale Community College, the cutbacks meant leaving dozens of vacancies unfilled. • The tough economy affected enrollment in graduate business schools throughout the Valley region. From Pepperdine’s Graziadio School of Business to the University of Redlands and Woodbury University School of Business, enrollment was down across the board due largely to declining support for MBA programs by corporations and reluctance by students to go further into debt for their education. • California Lutheran University relocated its Woodland Hills campus to a site on De Soto Avenue, which is nearly twice the size of its former facility on Oxnard Street. This year • Woodbury University is slated to complete a new building containing a soundstage and screening room for its digital media and film program. The university also will continue its journey toward raising standards by seeking accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), the most prestigious accrediting body for graduate schools of business. • California State University, Northridge plans to add specialized certificates and programs of study which students perceive as more valuable, such as a Master’s of Science in accountancy. • Expect more enrollment of foreign students at schools like California Lutheran University, which continues to scour the world for new student recruits. ENTERTAINMENT 2011 Highlights • Cable operator Comcast completes it acquisition of NBC Universal, which has major studio operations in Burbank and Universal City as well as the Universal Studios theme park. • Film director James Cameron and camera inventor Vince Pace start their 3D entertainment company, Cameron-Pace Group. 3ality Digital, meanwhile, acquires Element Technica and moves that company’s 3D camera manufacturing to Burbank. • Warner Bros. Entertainment releases the last movie of its popular “Harry Potter” franchise. The eight titles bring in more than $7 billion in global box office receipts. This year • Visual Effects Society in Encino continues working with industry leaders and studios to get better working conditions and benefits for visual effects artists. • Hollywood serves up another summer of sequels (Batman, Spiderman, Men in Black), re-boots, (Total Recall), super heroes (The Avengers) and one tough president (Abraham Lincoln – Vampire Hunter). • Safety issues in the adult entertainment industry is expected to go before voters in the City of Los Angeles in June with a ballot initiative on a new law requiring condoms on film sets. GLENDALE 2011 Highlights • Online document company LegalZoom moves into the city from Los Angeles bringing 300 employees. • Technicolor plans to open a new film processing lab as a replacement for a lab the company closed in North Hollywood. • DineEquity Inc., the Glendale-based restaurant operator of IHOP and Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill, announced plans to open 40 IHOP restaurants in nine Middle Eastern countries. This year • Remodeling work scheduled to begin on the Glendale Galleria mall. • Museum of Neon Art to open on Brand Boulevard as an anchor for the city’s cultural arts district in the downtown area. HEALTH CARE 2011 Highlights • A number of Valley area hospitals expanded: Providence Holy Cross finished and opened a $180 million, 138-bed LEED-certified addition which included a 12-bed neonatal intensive care unit. Glendale Adventist Medical Center finished the second phase of a $220 million expansion, a 30,000-square-foot tower that added space for surgery and created a designated space for families of surgery patients. West Hills Hospital & Medical Center also completed the expansion phase of a $72 million project that doubled the emergency room and expanded the intensive care unit. Antelope Valley Hospital launched a $32 million renovation. • Providence Health & Services proposed a joint venture partnership with 500 independent physicians in the region who would all be financially aligned and electronically connected to the hospital. • Facey Medical Group received a $1 million grant from Blue Shield of California to launch an accountable care organization. This year • The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on health care reform and the individual health insurance mandate, with potentially significant impact on local institutions. • Adult day health care programs feel the impact of state cuts. A new program, Community-Based Adult Services, will only be able to handle half of current participants eligible to participate. • An FBI investigation into billing practices of Prime Healthcare, the for-profit hospital chain that owns Encino Hospital and Sherman Oaks Hospital, continues, according to published reports. INSURANCE 2011 Highlights • AB 52 never made it out of the state legislature. The bill would have imposed more regulatory control over health insurance rate hikes, and given the California Insurance Commissioner final say over increases. • L/B/W Insurance and Financial Services doubled its personal lines division with the purchase of Fortman Insurance Agents and Brokers. Fortman brought 700 to 800 clients to L/B/W, which has 34 employees and premiums with a value of more than $35 million. • Woodland Hills-based Scanlon Guerra Burke, with 38 employees and $100 million in premiums, and Chatsworth-based Northridge Insurance Agency, with 32 employees and $30 million in premiums, tied the knot in August, forming one of the largest insurance brokerages in L.A. County. • Farmers Insurance moved 800 employees from Simi Valley to a renovated facility in Woodland Hills, partly to help increase the visibility of the Farmers’ brand. This year • The battle over AB 52 is likely to continue as Assemblyman Mike Feuer has vowed to continue his fight for health insurance reform. • More consolidation may take place in the independent brokerage business as larger underwriters from Chubb to Hartford look for greater scale and efficiency by doing business with fewer and larger brokers. • Expect rising workman’s comp insurance rates: after staying relatively stable for the past five years, brokers say they are seeing significant increases again. LAW 2011 Highlights • Prominent intellectual property firm Christie, Parker & Hale LLP moved to Glendale from Pasadena where it has been headquartered since its founding in 1954. • Employment law attorneys Karen Gabler and Jonathan Fraser Light left Oxnard’s Nordman Cormany Hair & Compton to start their own firm, which opened in May in Camarillo. • A group of attorneys and other professionals launched in October the San Fernando Valley Collaboration Professionals, a collaborative law association that seeks to solve disputes, primarily divorce cases, outside of court. This Year • With the California budget crisis far from solved, look for more gridlock at an already strained court system. • Expect more people to consider ways of solving disputes out of court. MANUFACTURING 2011 Highlights • SolarWorld USA shuts down its manufacturing line at its Camarillo facility and moves the work to the company’s state-of-the-art plant in Oregon. Sales and marketing operations will remain in Camarillo. • Hydrogen detector company H2Scan moves to larger facility in anticipation of growing demand for its product in energy and industrial applications. • Easton Sports, a Van Nuys sporting equipment manufacturer, adds lacrosse to its product line. It’s the first new team sport the company’s added in 25 years. This year • Lithium ion battery manufacturer Quallion LLC slated to expand with new facility in Santa Clarita. • Spectrolab, a subsidiary of Boeing Corp. that makes solar panels for space and land-based uses, is adding space to its Sylmar plant. • Construction on the 110-megawatt Crescent Dunes solar project continues and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne provides software and molten salt thermal energy storage for the project. MEDIA 2011 Highlights • Local publications reach milestone anniversaries: Los Angeles Daily News celebrates its 100th anniversary. The San Fernando Valley Business Journal marks its 15th anniversary. • Salem Communications adds muscle to its online presence with the acquisition of Evangelical Bible Book Store in February, and the signing of an agreement in October with DeeperCalling Media to develop retail websites. • Mark Pedowitz named as the new president of The CW, the Burbank television network co-owned by Warner Bros. and CBS. Pedowitz replaces Dawn Ostroff, who had headed the network since its start in 2006. This year • Independent public television station KCET moves to Burbank from Los Angeles. • KNBC in Burbank to make changes to its public image with an updated logo that is part of an investment in NBC-owned stations. NONPROFITS 2011 Highlights • San Fernando-based Valley Family Center struggled to keep its programs and facility intact after the economic downturn and unforeseen costs exhausted its savings account. The VFC’s solution to the dilemma was to sell the building to an investor that would lease it back. • Pacoima-based Children’s Hunger Fund packed up and moved to new, more spacious quarters. CHF officials said the move will allow for the organization to expand its international programs and grow its volunteer base. • Goodwill Southern California announced plans to open a new high-end boutique in the Valley along with 15 new stores in the region. This year • North Hills-based Penny Lane Centers will begin construction on a 20-unit residential apartment project, which will provide permanent supportive housing to emancipated youth. • Hope of the Valley Rescue Mission plans to expand its programs serving the homeless and destitute. The Sun Valley-based organization will extend the days of operation on its hot meals program and will add additional showers to its hot showers program. REAL ESTATE 2011 Highlights • Sherman Oaks-based IMT Capital purchased the former Northridge Valley Hospital Sherman Way campus for nearly $15 million with plans to turn the complex into multifamily apartments. • Developer Mark Scheu released his two-building Agoura Hills office condo project onto the market this fall. The Ridge project was 14 years in the making. • Ramsey-Shilling Commercial Real Estate Services Inc. was bought by the Canadian powerhouse Avison Young. This year • Brokers expect rents to increase in the industrial market as many top quality Valley buildings — especially ones with large square footage — are occupied. • Multi-family projects likely will remain a hot commodity. Several stalled projects could begin moving forward throughout the Valley. • Office real estate will likely continue to struggle compared to other sectors unless job growth increases significantly, which economists are not predicting. • Expect more discussion on the future of redevelopment agencies. The big question is whether the state legislature will step in to save redevelopment agencies in some form or whether the agencies will finally become extinct. RETAIL 2011 Highlights • Nordstrom announced it would be moving out of its current location in Glendale Galleria and setting up shop in the Americana at Brand. • City of Los Angeles approves plans for the mixed use Westfield Village at Topanga project to be anchored by a Costco. The first phase of the project will commence in the second quarter. • A labor dispute between grocery union workers and the parent companies of three major Southern California supermarket chains — Albertsons, Vons and Ralph’s —settled in September averting a strike. This year • Look for revamps at area malls: Construction is slated to begin on a new 120,000-square-foot, two-level Bloomingdale’s at the Glendale Galleria. The store is scheduled to open in 2013. Westfield Fashion Square in Sherman Oaks is expected to finish renovations on its new dining terrace in May. The mall also will get new storefronts, new furniture, additional seating and revamped restrooms. • Development on the Russell Ranch Road project in Westlake Village is scheduled to begin. • Calabasas-based restaurant chain Cheesecake Factory is slated to expand its presence in the Middle East, opening three to four restaurants by the end of the year. SANTA CLARITA 2011 Highlights • Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved the first two phases of the Newhall Ranch community. Mission Village and Landmark Village would total about 5,500 housing units. • The city saw its best year in terms of filming, since it began issuing location filming permits. During the July 2010 to June 2011 fiscal year, the city had 878 film days and 341 film permits. • fDi Magazine, a division of the Financial Times, named Santa Clarita to its “American Cities of the Future” list. According to the magazine the list honors cities with the “best prospects for inward investment, economic development and business expansion.” Santa Clarita earned the second spot in the small city category. This year • The city of Santa Clarita plans to open its new 30,000-square-foot LEED-certified public library in Old Town Newhall. • The draft environmental impact report for the Disney | ABC Studios at The Ranch project is tentatively scheduled to be released at the end of the first quarter. TECHNOLGY & BIOTECHNOLGY 2011 Highlights • Amgen Inc., the world’s largest biotech firm, had its first full year of sales for its long-awaited prostate cancer drug Xgeva. The company announced in October it was laying off 380 workers, including 226 in Thousand Oaks, as it restructured its research and development units. • Calabasas-based Fulcrum Microsystems, an Ethernet switch manufacturer, was acquired by Intel Corp. in a deal announced in July. • Camarillo-based Vitesse Semiconductor Corp., a provider of advanced integrated circuits services for the network and communications industries, earned a spot on the NASDAQ in March after a five-year absence. This year • Amgen CEO Kevin Sharer retires and will be replaced by current President and Chief Operating Officer Robert Bradway. Watch Amgen’s evolving relationship with biosimilars, which are essentially generic drugs. • Expect the market to remain hot in the cloud computing market. TOURISM & HOSPITALITY 2011 Highlights • Hotel occupancy rates in the San Fernando Valley soared past 82 percent, the highest level since 2006, while room rates rose to $106.93 according to the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau. • Area cruise companies invest in their fleet: Viking River Cruises of Woodland Hills announced plans to invest $250 million to build four new ships, the first ship building project since 2001. Santa Clarita-based Princess Cruises announced plans to build two mega ships, the largest to date in the company’s history. • The new Universal Studios Harry Potter exhibit opened to great fanfare just before the holidays and is expected to boost attendance and tourism to the region through 2012. This year • Look for more tourism to the region, especially from China, Korea and Australia. • Watch consumer reaction to the new smoking ban adopted by many cruise lines, including Santa Clarita-based Princess Cruises. VENTURA COUNTY 2011 Highlights • Bella Capri Inn opens as the first boutique hotel in Camarillo and continues the makeover of the city’s downtown. • Ensign-Bickford Aerospace and Defense buys the former Special Devices office and industrial campus in Moorpark. • Redesigned museum exhibit opens in February at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum to coincide with the centennial of the late president’s birth. This year • Construction expected to start on 45-acre retail center in Camarillo to be anchored by a Lowe’s from developer Bob Selleck. • Simi Valley Town Center to undergo facelift by new owners, Alberta Development Partners.

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