One of the biggest blocks of space in the Chatsworth market was snatched up last week by the County of Los Angeles in a 10-year, $34 million lease deal.
The county is taking 164,500 square feet at CT Realty Corp.’s Chatsworth Business Park, located at 21415 and 21615 Plummer St.
The park consists of two, two-story office buildings totaling 230,000 square feet. Sanyo Fisher occupies 65,000 square feet at one of the buildings. The county will take the remaining space there and all of the other building for its Department of Public Social Services.
“It’s one of the only opportunities in the area of this magnitude,” said Dave Ball, vice president of development for Newport Beach-based CT Realty.
Four county programs CalWORKs, Greater Avenues for Independence and the administrative offices of Medi-Cal and In-Home Supportive Services will be moving from Panorama City and Canoga Park in December. The county will also have a child-care center at the site, for approximately 75 children of employees. The Chatsworth location will serve as a one-stop shop for social services in the west San Fernando Valley, Ball said.
CT Realty acquired the project last November from the government of Singapore for $12.5 million. The company is currently in the process of investing $11 million in upgrades to the 14-year-old complex.
“It presented a value-added opportunity for us,” Ball said.
Ken Ashen, Greg Geraci and Bennett Robinson of CB Richard Ellis represented CT Realty and Vincent Licato and William Twomey of Licato Realty & Associates represented the county.
Culver City Move
Viant Corp. has signed a lease for 50,000 square feet in a converted warehouse building at 3562-82 Eastham Drive in Culver City.
The new digs will reflect the consulting company’s culture no titles, a flat hierarchy and an open, collaborative operating style and multi-disciplinary approach. That’s expressed architecturally by a lack of private offices and the same, unostentatious furniture for all employees, said Lance Trebesch, general manager for Viant in Southern California.
“Our Culver City space will be a direct reflection, but we’re even taking it to a higher level (with the envisioned tenant improvements),” Trebesch said.
The space will have an open floor plan with “collaborative pods inter-dispersed throughout the office,” he said. Gensler is designing the space.
The 70,0000-square-foot building, owned by PAS Trust, is currently under renovation. The eight-year lease is valued at about $10 million.
Boston-based Viant provides strategic consulting, creative design and technology services for companies seeking to capitalize on the Internet. It will be moving its 18-month-old L.A. office from interim space in Santa Monica. Trebesch said the company has 83 employees today, but could grow to as many as 125 in Culver City.
Ian Strano of First Property Realty Corp. represented the landlord. Jim Fish of Travers Realty/ONCOR International represented the tenant.
Tech Corridor Development
The Hileman Co. has acquired a 169,000-square-foot office-manufacturing complex in Thousand Oaks that it plans to transform into a new 275,000-square-foot, low-density technology campus.
Hileman acquired the site for $16 million from Realty Bancorp Equities of Woodland Hills. It anticipates investing another $25 million to completely redesign the property, which will be renamed The Arbors from Conejo Corporate Pointe.
Now may be an opportune time to develop, given the Conejo Valley’s office vacancy rate of 8.2 percent. Jack Hileman, president of the company, said the plan is to turn around a well-located eyesore.
“We’ve been pursuing this property for quite some time because we think it’s a fantastic location on the tech corridor,” Hileman said. “We’re buying a project that’s been fairly overlooked.”
The complex, at 649 Lawrence Drive, sits on 16 acres fronting the Ventura (101) Freeway. It is adjacent to Amgen Inc.’s and Xircom’s corporate headquarters. Three one- and two-story buildings are on the site currently, one of which is 100 percent occupied by Conexant Systems Inc., a major semiconductor supplier.
Hileman plans to demolish the two remaining, obsolete manufacturing buildings and develop in their place a trio of two-story class-A office buildings. Construction is scheduled to begin in November. CB is handling the leasing.
The Arbors will be Hileman’s first major development under its own name. But the L.A.-based real estate firm has served as development manager for Kearny Real Estate Co.’s Pasadena Corporate Park and managed construction of Infonet Services’ corporate headquarters in El Segundo.
Lowe Lowdown
Lowe Enterprises Commercial Group has closed its purchase of 20 acres from Northrop Grumman Corp. near the Hawthorne Airport.
The deal is the first part of what is planned to be a two-phase purchase in which Lowe will acquire 105 acres altogether, south of the Century (105) Freeway and east of Crenshaw Boulevard. Its acquisition of the remaining acreage is currently in escrow.
After closing on the first 20 acres, Lowe sold a portion of the property a 320,000-square-foot building to Sabey Corp. of Seattle, said Craig Furniss, senior vice president at Lowe. Sabey plans to develop the building for telecom uses.
The entire development has four components. About a quarter will consist of retail, including a Lowe’s Home Improvement store, office supply outlet and restaurants. Then there’s a 375,000-square-foot existing office building that could be used for office or telecom and two existing manufacturing buildings (Sabey’s and another that may also go telecom). The last piece will consist of new warehouse-distribution centers.
David Drummond of Colliers Seeley and Jeff Kernochan of Fischer & Co. represented Lowe in the Sabey deal, while Jeff Morgan of CB represented the buyer. Kernochan also represented Lowe in the acquisition from Northrop.
Elizabeth Hayes can be reached at (323) 549-5225, ext. 229, or at [email protected].
