After a blistering launch last May, Culver City furniture outlet H.D. Buttercup is expanding its current location and plans to add about 20 outlets in the next five years.
The current 100,000-square-foot store is projected to generate $30 million in sales this year, according to a statement by Evan Cole, H.D. Buttercup’s founder and the former chief executive of ABC Carpet & Home in New York.
Upcoming stores will be in urban centers throughout the country. However, Cole has not disclosed the exact locations and when they will open, pending finalization of lease agreements.
Unlike a traditional furniture retailer, H.D. Buttercup features full furniture lines direct from manufacturers, about 50 of which have space at the Culver City store. Cole dubbed the concept “manutailing,” a combination of manufacturing and retailing where manufacturers sell straight to consumers.
The Culver City store is taking over a neighboring parking lot to expand to about 140,000 square feet. Once renovated, H.D. Buttercup will include a 150-seat restaurant operated by a yet-to-be-named restaurateur.
Other additions include an in-house design service for customers who want decorating advice and more space for manufacturers to display goods, which range from sofas to bedding to rugs to desks. Among the manufacturers now at H.D. Buttercup are Barn Dandys, Alex & Ani, Good Home Co., Arte Italica Ltd., Revival Lightworks Inc. and Asia Minor Carpets Inc.
Water Politics
The stock of Los Angeles-based water storage company Cadiz Inc. tumbled 9 percent last week as a political play on a regional water board unraveled, dashing any hopes for revival of a controversial Cadiz water storage plan.
Last week, L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa reportedly lost his bid to install former state Assemblyman Richard Katz as chief executive of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the massive wholesale water agency for the region.
Katz served as an advisor on water issues to former Gov. Gray Davis and is a close personal friend of Villaraigosa. In addition, Cadiz chief executive Keith Brackpool contributed more than $50,000 to Villaraigosa’s two campaigns for L.A. mayor.
Speculation had mounted during the week that if he were at the helm, Katz would push to revive a $150 million project to store Colorado River water underneath a Mojave Desert tract owned by Cadiz. The MWD board killed the Cadiz project in late 2002 after fierce opposition from environmentalists who contended that a local aquifer would be harmed.
According to a news report in the Los Angeles Times, the MWD board on Feb. 7 instead decided to award the chief executive post to an insider, MWD general counsel Jeffrey Kightlinger. MWD officials would not confirm the news report.
Nonetheless, the thinly traded Cadiz stock headed south last week from a Feb. 2 opening of $20.50 per share to a Feb. 9 closing of $18.70 a share, a drop of 8.8 percent.
Courtney Degener, investor relations manager for Cadiz, said there was no news from the company that could account for the movement in the stock price. She added the stock has shown a lot of movement in the past couple months.
Degener said the company had no comment on last week’s developments at the MWD.
Cancer Treatment
Insert Therapeutics Inc., a majority-owned subsidiary of Pasadena-based Arrowhead Research Corp. said last week that it has applied to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for clearance to launch a Phase 1 clinical trial for its lead cancer-fighting compound, IT-101.
IT-101 combines Insert’s patented delivery system, Cyclosert, with an existing anti-cancer compound called camptothecin to treat patients with certain types of solid tumors.
Camptothecin is an alkaloid developed in the 1960s that was shown in the laboratory to be effective against a broad spectrum of cancers. It was never brought to market because it doesn’t dissolve easily or metabolize well in humans. Insert believes its nanotechnology-based delivery system, which involves tiny molecules of glucose called cyclodextrins, can overcome those challenges.
The technology is licensed from the California Institute of Technology and was developed by chemical engineering professor and Insert founder Mark Davis.
Phase 1 trials evaluate safety, tolerability and how an experimental drug metabolizes in humans. The IT-101 study is planned to be held at the City of Hope Cancer Center in Duarte.
No Sale?
Officials at Rockwell Scientific were denying reports last week that the Thousand Oaks-based defense research and design unit was up for sale despite acknowledging offers were being entertained for the company.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the company, jointly owned by Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based Rockwell Collins and Milwaukee-based Rockwell Automation, had been put on the block.
“The company isn’t actually for sale. We’re currently exploring possible options to see if there are any companies that may be interested in Rockwell Scientific. But no decision has been made,” said spokeswoman Nancy Welsh.
The company employs about 450 in Thousand Oaks and has a branch in Camarillo. It does high-tech research, development, testing and licensing for the Department of Defense and other customers.
Rachel Brown, Deborah Crowe, Howard Fine, Allen Roberts Jr.
