AROUND THE VALLEYS

Antelope Valley LANCASTER BYD Motors Inc. is participating in a statewide contract to allow U.S. transit agencies to leverage California’s purchasing contract to buy its battery-electric motor coaches. Created to aid California transit agencies meet zero-emission vehicle mandates, the statewide contract will also be available to governmental entities outside of California. The state selected three models for the contract, all of which will be built in at the BYD factory in Lancaster. The models are the 40-foot high-floor coach, the 45-foot low-floor coach and the 45-foot high-floor coach, the company said on Aug. 31. San Fernando Valley NORTH HOLLYWOOD A 16-unit apartment property in North Hollywood has sold for $3.5 million, or $218,750 per unit. Located at 11557-11565 Erwin St., the multifamily structure, built in 1958, is subject to rent control. The property came with ready-to-issue permit plans to build another seven units. The property spans a double lot, totaling more than 31,000 square feet and consisting of eight one-bedroom units, six two-bedroom units and two three-bedroom units. Marcus & Millichap Senior Vice President Jason Tuvia and Senior Managing Director of Investments Janette Monfared, both at the firm’s Encino office, held the listing. The two also represented the buyer, a private investor. SUN VALLEY The city of Los Angeles has approved Lankershim Crossing — a mixed-use project to be built by a joint venture of Summerland Partners and Hankey Investment Co. that will put 432 dwellings on a nearly 4.5-acre site in Sun Valley. According to the project’s Sustainable Communities Environmental Assessment filed with the City Planning Department, Lankershim Crossing, which is located at 7918-7946 N. Lankershim Blvd. and 11650-11664 W. Strathern St., will rise seven stories and encompass approximately 678,328 square feet. The 432 apartments will include 72 one-bedroom units, 180 two-bedroom units, and 180 three-bedroom units while a total of 11 percent of the proposed dwellings (48 units) would be designated as restricted affordable housing. These units will be built above a ground-floor level of commercial storefronts spanning 22,000 square feet. A single-story commercial building and a one-floor office building at the site will be razed to make way for the new construction. SYLMAR L3Harris Technologies has won a contract to build two sonar systems for an undisclosed member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, at its ocean systems manufacturing plant in Sylmar. The defense industry contractor, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange, is headquartered in Melbourne, Fla. The contract requires L3Harris to build two low-frequency active towed sonar, or LFATS, systems for a military ally. Such systems are used on ships to detect and track submarines. L3Harris designs its systems to perform at a lower operating frequency, making them effective against quiet diesel-electric submarines as well as nuclear submarines. L3Harris said in a statement it was “a multi-million-dollar contract.” Under terms of the contract, which was awarded by the Defense Department, the company will build and deliver the sonar systems over the next 26 months. VAN NUYS Capstone Turbine Corp. received an order for two of its natural gas-fueled C200 microturbines from a textiles and home furnishings manufacturer in Slovenia. The company received the order through Laibach, its exclusive distributor in Slovenia and Croatia. The two C200 Signature series microturbines are expected to be commissioned at KO-SI d.o.o. by December. They will produce electrical power and exhaust heat that will be used in the treatment of natural fibers. KO-SI d.o.o. is a manufacturer of materials used in mattresses, upholstered furniture, packaging, insulation and erosion control in the agricultural industry. Capstone Chief Executive Darren Jamison said the order shows the proof of resiliency the company is seeing from markets in Europe. “We have recently seen both product and service wins from the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Italy and now Slovenia as people in Europe return to work following the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Jamison said in a statement. WOODLAND HILLS Northrop Grumman Corp. completed the critical design review of an upgraded navigation system for U.S. military aircraft. The engineering and design work on the Embedded Global Positioning System (GPS)/Inertial Navigation System (INS)-Modernization, or EGI-M, program was done in Woodland Hills. The navigation system is for the U.S. Air Force’s F-22 Raptor and the Navy’s E-2D Advanced Hawkeye aircraft. Brandon White, vice president of navigation and positioning systems for the global aerospace and defense contractor, said that completing the review is a key step to bringing navigation capability upgrades to the county’s fighters. “With its open architecture and government ownership of the key internal interfaces, EGI-M’s next generation navigation solution allows the government to quickly insert emerging capabilities from third parties while maintaining cyber security and airworthiness,” White said in a statement. Santa Clarita Valley SANTA CLARITA Carnival Corp. has delayed a return to sea for its Princess and Cunard cruise lines, cancelling several sailings scheduled for 2021 as the coronavirus pandemic rages on. Cunard Line will extend its pause in operations through March 25, 2021. The delay affects all three of Cunard’s ships. With the new schedule, the Queen Elizabeth is slated to return March 25, the Queen Mary 2 on April 18 and the Queen Victoria on May 16. The company previously said it would resume cruising in November. Princess announced the cancellation of 29 cruises on two ships scheduled for early 2021 “due to limitations with border and port access … and the continued uncertainty of airline travel,” the company said in a statement. Cancelled are world cruises on the Island Princess and South American cruises on the Pacific Princess. The ships will resume operations as scheduled in April 2021 at the earliest. Tri-Cities GLENDALE Virtual reality startup Spaces has been acquired by Apple Inc., according to a media report. Spaces is a spinoff of DreamWorks Animation, the Glendale studio owned by Comcast Corp. It was spun off the company in early 2016, just months before the acquisition by Comcast closed. Spaces originally developed virtual reality experiences for theme parks and movie theaters. After the coronavirus pandemic closed those venues, the company pivoted to developing a virtual reality add-on to traditional video conferencing products to allow users to take part in video meetings with an animated avatar, according to tech news website Protocol. Apple confirmed the acquisition after the Protocol story was published. Ventura County CAMARILLO Semtech has supplied its long-range, low-power technology to two Australian companies to deploy in avocado plantations. The semiconductor and Internet of Things products developer made its LoRa devices available to ICT International and Definium Technologies. The companies deployed a suite of LoRa-enabled sensors at a large-scale avocado farm in New South Wales, Australia to identify the causes of low crop yield. Farmers across Australia are currently in the process of integrating ICT International and Definium’s LoRa-based sensors into smart irrigation systems. THOUSAND OAKS Amgen Inc. joined the Dow Jones Industrial Index on Aug. 31, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. The pharmaceutical company replaced Pfizer Inc. on the 30-stock index. Index changes, which also include Salesforce.com replacing Exxon Mobil Corp. and Honeywell International Inc. bumping out Raytheon Technologies Corp., were prompted by Apple Inc.’s decision to split its stock 4:1. Apple’s stock split weakened the index’s weight in the Global Industry Classification Standard Information Technology sector, according to a statement from S&P Dow Jones Indices. It switched stocks to help offset this reduction. “They also help diversify the index by removing overlap between companies of similar scope and adding new types of businesses that better reflect the American economy,” S&P Dow Jones added in a statement.