The Briefing: THE BOSS’ MANAGEMENT STRATEGY Ben Reiling, president of Los Angeles-based Zelman Development Co., has built or developed a number of commercial and industrial buildings and complexes in the San Fernando Valley. But when it came time to turn the 103-acre site of the old Lockheed Aircraft plant in Burbank, once a Superfund site, into a retail and office complex, Reiling knew it wouldn’t be easy. He realized that conducting an environmental audit, determining whether the site would need to be cleaned up again and then selling the whole package to a skeptical public would be one of the biggest hurdles facing the project, dubbed the Burbank Empire Center. Reiling understood the results of that environmental audit could sink the project altogether. Recently, Reiling took time to speak to Business Journal reporter Carlos Martinez about those early days of the project. “In our business, one of the most difficult things is getting through the entitlement process, getting out of an adversarial position and trying to create a partnership with the cities and trying to work together to get a project done. “The city wanted to audit the environmental documents and we wanted to do it, but we didn’t want to run into this adversarial situation. I didn’t want to give up on the project because of the great potential it had. It was a huge piece of property. So we said, ‘Let’s both do the audit and see what we find.’ “We basically had to meet with the city council members and show that this was the way to go. They had concerns, but I felt that two audits was a way to get rid of any lingering questions about the site. They agreed. “We made sure we met with the citizens and got an array of feelings from the community. I wanted to make sure we heard from the members of the community and they supported us. “We knew it would take months to do it, but it was something we knew we had to do and, if our conclusion was the same as the city’s conclusion, then that would be fine. We didn’t want our analysis to be tainted by cross-pollination, so we worked separately and cooperatively. We examined every piece of paper and every test result and went through everything we could get our hands on for that audit. “We were able to take 100 acres of fallow soil that wasn’t producing anything and we were able to produce this great commercial and retail complex that serves a community.”