Valley Digest

VALLEYDIGEST/27inches/rdyto2nd/mark2nd New Fashion Center Plans have been announced for the development of a 250,000-square-foot shopping center at Glendale Boulevard and California Avenue, on the site of the former Glendale Fashion Center. Phoenix-based Vestar Development Co. is scheduled to begin demolition of the old Glendale Fashion Center structures on July 1, with the grand opening of the new center scheduled for September 1998. A Vestar spokesman said the Glendale Fashion Center name is being retained because it is well known throughout the area. The center is slated to include a Ralphs supermarket, Long’s drugs, Best Buy electronics, Barnes & Noble books, Cost Plus imports, Ross Dress for Less and Petco. The center will also contain a 10,000-square-foot food court. The project is 98 percent preleased, according to a Vestar statement. The company has built one other shopping center in Southern California, the 600,000-square-foot Cerritos Towne Center in Cerritos. Wal-Mart to Open The world’s largest retailer is making its first foray into the city of Los Angeles. Wal-Mart Stores announced that it will open the first two-level Wal-Mart store in the United States at the site of a former Broadway department store in the Panorama Mall in Panorama City. Wal-Mart purchased the 200,000-square-foot structure from Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores Inc. Renovation is expected to begin this summer, and the store is slated to open late this year or early in 1998. “Wal-Mart’s decision to open its first vertical store at Panorama Mall is testimony to the strength of the mall and Panorama City,” Dana Anderson, vice chairman of Santa Monica-based Macerich Co. said in a statement. Macerich owns the Panorama Mall. Lockheed Unveils Airport Plan Lockheed Martin Corp., which faces condemnation proceedings over its land slated for the Burbank Airport expansion, has proposed a “conceptual design” for nearly 3 million square feet of new commercial development on the property. Lockheed spokeswoman Maureen Curow said the company is trying to maximize what it gets for the 131 acres that the Airport Authority is seeking to condemn for the expansion. The City of Burbank which is fighting to minimize airport expansion is supporting the Lockheed plan because it would prevent the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority from expanding the airport to 27 gates by landlocking the new terminal. Lockheed Martin has argued in Superior Court condemnation proceedings that its property is worth $100 million or more. Lockheed has been fighting attempts by the Airport Authority to obtain the land through eminent domain. But last month, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge reaffirmed the Airport Authority’s right to take possession of the site on June 8. Porter Ranch Light Reflecting the more conservative real estate environment, the Los Angeles City Council has approved a scaled-back version of a once massive development planned since the late 1980s for Porter Ranch. The commercial complex now known as Porter Ranch Towne Center was originally intended to be a sprawling 2-million-square-foot development composed of office buildings, retail stores, a hotel complex and a movie theater. But following the real estate market’s bottoming out in the early ’90s, Porter Ranch Development Co. now plans to build a 660,000-square-foot shopping center, likely to include an upscale supermarket, restaurants, a bookstore, a hardware store and a coffee house. “We’re hoping for a groundbreaking to take place in the next few months,” said Richard Mahan, spokesman for Porter Ranch Development, a partnership of Shapell Industries Inc. and Liberty Building Co., both based in Beverly Hills. Last month, the City Council, on the recommendation of the Los Angeles Planning Commission, unanimously approved the new plan for the center, planned for an empty site on Rinaldi Street between Corbin Avenue and Winnetka Avenue. The shopping center is designed to include more than 50 stores and restaurants and more than 3,000 parking spaces. Porter Ranch Development expects more than 600 people to work in the center. Pipeline Gets Go-Ahead Construction is slated to begin this month on a 132-mile oil pipeline that will cut across the San Fernando Valley before heading Southwest to refineries in Wilmington. The Pacific Pipeline which has been under discussions for the past seven years was approved by the L.A. City Council last month. The council originally opposed the pipeline which will transport about 130,000 barrels of crude oil daily out of fears it could break and contaminate the city’s aqueducts and reservoirs. The council’s about-face came after a Superior Court judge ruled that the city can’t block the project. Supporters say the pipeline will employ the latest in fiber-optic technology to detect leaks and other problems. The $170 million project is expected to be completed by the end of 1998. “This will be state-of-the-art,” said Charles McLean, a spokesman for Pacific Pipeline System Inc. of Burbank, a private utility company that wants to build the project. “In addition, this will bring a boost to the economy and add other benefits to the community.” About $50 million in construction contracts will be awarded during the next few months to local companies, he said. Pacific Pipeline also plans to spend about $10 million installing fiber-optic cable that can be used by the city to help expand its 911 emergency system, he said. In addition, Pacific Pipeline will install 150 computers in more than 30 schools, community centers and libraries along the route. The pipeline will be 20-inches in diameter, and will be built mostly underneath Southern Pacific railroad right of way through San Fernando, Burbank and Glendale before heading to downtown Los Angeles and ending in Wilmington. Pacific Pipeline is owned by Anschutz Corp., headed by Philip Anschutz, a Colorado oil man who is co-owner of the Los Angeles Kings hockey team. It is being backed b a consortium of oil companies that include Unocal and Texaco. Compiled by Julie Sable, Brad Berton, Daniel Taub and Joe Bel Bruno.