Drug Developer Checks Into El Segundo Facility

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Santa Monica biotech firm Kite Pharma Inc. has signed a lease for a commercial manufacturing facility in El Segundo near Los Angeles International Airport.

The company plans to use the 44,500-square-foot space, along with another recently leased clinical manufacturing facility in Santa Monica, to support clinical trials and prepare Kite for the anticipated 2017 commercial launch and supply of its lead drug candidate. The firm is working on therapies that extract a cancer patient’s immune system cells and engineer them to recognize cancer.

The building, at 2355 Utah Ave., is part of a creative office campus owned by NSB Associates Inc. Kite has an option to take 17,000 more square feet in the form of an addition that would have to be built.

“If we continue to grow we’ll be able to add some more manufacturing,” said broker Andrew Riley of CBRE Group Inc., who along with Jeff Pion represented Kite during lease negotiations. “Break down a wall and, boom, you have a 60,000-square-foot building.”

Along with clinical manufacturing, the recently leased 18,000-square-foot facility in Santa Monica will provide space for research and development as well as offices. Kite will still maintain its Santa Monica headquarters at 2225 Colorado Ave.

By the Beach

Boulevard Partners and Arris Investments have plunked down $11.5 million for a 25,000-square-foot mixed-use building on Lincoln Boulevard at Rose Avenue in Venice.

The building, at 316-26 Lincoln, was just 30 percent leased at the time of sale. It will undergo a renovation of a couple of million dollars and be repositioned to cater to the area’s creative tenant market, according to Scott A. Ginsburg, Boulevard managing partner. He added that the new co-owners would aim for a retail tenant mix that will include “creative” shops, likely in food and coffee.

Included in the sale was an adjacent 55-stall surface parking lot.

The seller, a limited liability corporation formed by three investors, included Louis Magur, an attorney whose office is listed at the property. Magur did not return a call seeking comment. According to CoStar Group Inc., the sellers purchased the property in 1993 for $1.6 million.

CBRE’s Pion represented Boulevard and Arris in the purchase, and the co-owners have retained Industry Partners to handle leasing for the property. Sklar Kirsh advised the buyers on the purchase and acquisition financing, provided by Latitude Real Estate Investors.

Mountaintop Offering

One of America’s most historic and iconic broadcasting landmarks is for sale.

The Poole Tower Complex on Mount Wilson, high above Los Angeles, is expected to fetch between $5 million and $10 million.

“This is beachfront property in the world of tower sites,” said Robert Heymann Jr., spokesman for Media Services Group, which has been retained by Poole Properties Inc. to explore a sale.

Rising almost 6,000 feet above sea level, the complex was developed in the 1950s by the late legendary L.A. broadcaster John H. Poole and has been a tower site of choice for TV and radio stations serving the L.A. market ever since.

Among the current tenants are iHeartMedia’s KBIG-FM (104.3), KWHY-TV (Channel 22) and KXOS-FM (93.9). Broadcasters pay tower owners to send their signals from the Mount Wilson site.

Industrial Acquisition

American Realty Advisors, a Glendale company with more than $6 billion in assets under management, has purchased a 175,000-square-foot warehouse in Santa Fe Springs for $21.6 million.

The investor bought the Shoemaker Distribution Center, at 15050-15066 Shoemaker Ave., from Columbia California Shoemaker Industrial, an entity controlled by Lincoln Property Co., for about $129.89 a square foot.

Gary Steinhardt, director of the investment group at American Realty, said the firm bought the building as it focuses on industrial assets throughout the United States. It was particularly interested in the site because of its proximity to West Coast ports.

The building is fully occupied by multiple tenants, including J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Altaquip and Pacific Diving Academy USA Inc.

However, Steinhardt said there will likely be some tenant movement and that once space opens up, the company expects demand from replacement tenants to be strong.

American represented itself in the acquisition. The seller was represented by Barbara Emmons, Darla Longo, Rebecca Perlmutter and Laird Perkins of CBRE.

Multifamily Sale

Corsica Apartment Homes, a 141-unit multifamily property in Pico Rivera, has been sold for $25.8 million, about $183,000 a unit. One-bedroom apartments at the property rent for $1,241.

The buyer was West L.A.’s Benedict Canyon Equities, which purchased the property, at 9128 Burke St., from Irvine investor Davlyn Investments. Representatives of Benedict Canyon declined to comment on their plans for the property.

Stewart I. Weston, a senior director at Institutional Property Advisors who handled the transaction along with Ensbury Group, said the property has consistently been at around 95 percent occupancy.

Leasing Roundup

Vantage Property Investors, the Manhattan Beach developer of Playa Jefferson, has signed leases with ad firm Omnicom, interactive digital ad agency R/GA and flex workspace Regus totaling 95,000 square feet. The 200,000-square-foot property is now 67 percent leased. Omnicom will take 60,000 square feet in Building C, R/GA moved into 15,000 square feet in Building A and Regus took 20,000 square feet in Building D. The developer was repped by Peter Best, Lisa St. John and Owen Fileti of LA Realty Partners. Omnicom was represented by Lee Feld of Feld Real Estate and Michelle Esquivel of CBRE, R/GA was represented by Steve Kolsky of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank and Regus was represented by Blake Searles and Brian Niehaus of Jones Lang LaSalle. … Now that there are more food options in downtown Los Angeles, it stands to reason that a way to work off all those calories was not far behind. Planet Fitness, a national chain, has leased 28,000 square feet at 437 S. Broadway and is scheduled to open this summer. Lee Shapiro, executive vice president of Kennedy Wilson’s brokerage group, and Justin Weiss, a senior associate, represented landlord Broadway Investments Group. Planet Fitness was represented by Lauren Smith-Hams Dressler of Crown Retail Services. … Cox Castle & Nicholson has completed its move north. The law firm took 49,000 square feet at the Century Plaza Towers’ north tower, relocating from the south tower. Jerry Porter of Cresa consulted with the firm on the move.

Staff reporters Jonathan Diamond, Karen Jordan, Hannah Miet and Marni Usheroff contributed to this report.

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