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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

City, Agencies Offering Inexpensive Green Incentives

I wandered into a breakout session about green commercial real estate development at the 2007 San Fernando Valley Economic Summit that was held last month, thinking that I would hear a lot of pie-in-the-sky discussion about an environmentally blissful future. But everything about this session was down to earth, filled with some very useful information for developers that I thought I would share. Apparently while I wasn’t looking, city governments and agencies have been working to provide incentives to developers and builders, sometimes for changes that are easy and inexpensive to make. Consider this from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power: The agency has set up an incentive program that provides rebates for every foot of building that meets what the agency said is a pretty low electricity savings standard. According to John Chen, who represented the DWP on the panel, the additional cost to install some of these savings features is only 2 percent to 5 percent of a total project cost, offset somewhat by the rebates. In addition to the rebates, the program offers free trees for landscaping, and another particularly enticing incentive the DWP will fast track the project with respect to getting utility services turned on. The office will also coordinate plans with different divisions so that developers can take advantage of programs in several different areas. Think it may be too troublesome to apply? Chen’s direct phone number is 213-367-1428 (I don’t think he realized there was a reporter in the audience). All he asks is that developers approach the agency before beginning the project. “Usually I get phone calls a few days before the grand opening,” he told the group. With all the development activity throughout L.A., the city sees a good opportunity to bring to the table energy, construction and engineering related procedures that will begin to make a dent in improving the environment. Officials have already adopted policies for buildings owned by the government and they are now trying to attract private developers with these new incentives. In some cases, panel members noted, the added expense of installing green procedures pays for itself quickly. Gene Detchemendy, a partner with Primestor Development, which among other things is redeveloping the Price Pfister site in Pacoima, noted that some forward planning helped to achieve greener goals without any additional cost. “I thought it was going to cost me a lot of money,” Detchemendy said. “But if you think about it beforehand it doesn’t have to. At Price Pfister when we demolished, instead of using trucks to haul all the concrete rubble, we will be using the rubble to go back into cement for the parking lot.” Portfolio Sale A number of large San Fernando Valley buildings are changing owners with a just completed portfolio sale estimated at $3-billion. The CalWest portfolio, owned by CalPERS and managed by RREEF, includes 23 million square feet with 538 buildings in 97 locations, mostly in the Western U.S. Included in the portfolio were three local industrial campuses, ASP Burbank, a North Hollywood property totaling 358,000 square feet, Chatsworth Business Park, a 198,000-square-foot building, and Lurline Business Park in Chatsworth, totaling 125,000 square feet. Walton Street Capital, a private real estate investment company, was the buyer. Fred B. Cordova, senior vice president at Colliers International, and Collier’s Mike Ross were the brokers on the buyer side of the transaction. The seller was represented by Jay Borzi and Steve Silk at Eastdil Secured represented the sellers. The brokers could not be reached at press time, and the portfolio size was estimated based on industry sources. Hudson Moves to Grubb Grubb & Ellis is the latest brokerage to jump into the multifamily market. Don Hudson has been appointed senior vice president with responsibility for spearheading the effort for the brokerage’s greater Los Angeles market. Hudson was most recently at Colliers International, where, as senior vice president he co-led a multifamily practice with Rory Ferlauto and Nancy Uy. Ferlauto and Uy are remaining at Colliers. “The multifamily practice at Grubb & Ellis is in its infancy, and I want to grow a market share in what is, in the greater L.A. area, a $200 million business annually,” Hudson said. Hudson, who will be based in Grubb’s Sherman Oaks office, said he will be building a team that will span all of the brokerage’s Los Angeles region offices. Retail Center Sale Woodlake Plaza, a 14,464-square-foot retail complex in Woodland Hills, sold for $5.1 million. Michael Pourmirza, a broker with Sperry Van Ness, represented the seller, Lilac Real Estate Holdings LLC. Benik Hovespian, a broker with Regal Properties, represented the buyer, who was undisclosed. Senior reporter Shelly Garcia can be reached at (818) 316-3123 or by e-mail at [email protected] .

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