La Mirada

Lease Signed:

Travelers Club Luggage Inc., a manufacturer of luggage, travel goods, and sports gear, signed a five-year contract to lease a newly refurbished distribution building in La Mirada. The 100,000-square-foot building is located at 14720 E. Alondra Blvd. It features 16 loading docks. Majestic Realty Co., based in City of Industry, brokered the deal for the owner-developer. Colliers International and Grubb & Ellis represented Travelers Club Luggage.

Whittier

Offices Sold:

BRCP Realty Services II LLC sold the Whittier Center at 15111 and 15141 Whittier Blvd. to Jamison Properties Inc. for $29 million, or about $202 per square foot. The property includes two buildings, one four-story and one five-story. The buildings’ tenants include Fremont Investment & Loan and First Team Real Estate and Bank of Whittier

West Hollywood

Building Up:

Greenwich Place, a complex with 117 market-rate town homes and condominiums and 35 affordable rental units, was approved for construction unanimously by the West Hollywood City Council. It is the largest affordable housing complex to have ever been approved for construction in West Hollywood. Regent Properties, the developer that submitted its plan for Greenwich Place two years ago, will build on the 2.97 acre property bounded by Beverly Boulevard, San Vicente Boulevard and Sherbourne Drive. The area is known as the Sherbourne Triangle. The project was designed by Van Tilburg, Banvard and Soderbergh, an architecture firm in Santa Monica. Construction is expected to begin later this year and will take 22 months to complete.

Beverly Hills

Real Estate Activity:

Several real estate deals went down recently in Beverly Hills. Goldstein Properties Development LLC bought an office building at 8912 Burton Way for $4.3 million, or $1,000 per square foot. The seller was Marshall S. Freedman. Meanwhile, Overture Films, a recently developed movie-production subsidiary of Starz Media, signed a sublease for 22,642 square feet in Beverly Mercedes Place at 9242 Beverly Blvd. for about $3.8 million. Overture Films will start using the space as its headquarters starting this month.

Malibu

Castle for Sale:

Castle Kashan overlooking the Pacific Ocean was recently put on the market by owner and philanthropist Lilly Lawrence for $17 million. Lawrence, the daughter of a former Iranian oil minister and goddaughter of Aristotle Onassis, purchased the 10,500-square-foot estate in 1998 and it has been the site of numerous local events, fundraisers, film and television projects. Tom Hodges built the estate in 1978 in the style of a 13th century Scottish castle. Its amenities include six bedrooms, eight bathrooms, five fireplaces, a glass enclosed sunroom, two guesthouses, a motor court and space for a helipad.

Market Dispute:

Cornucopia Foundation, a non-profit organization founded in 1998, has asked rival non-profit Raw Inspiration to withdraw an application to run a farmers market in the Civic Center area of Malibu. Cornucopia used to run a farmer’s market at the site, but it was shut down in 2005 because it didn’t have a CUP and a lease agreement with L.A. County, but the organization has since applied for a CUP. Cornucopia is asking Raw Inspiration to withdraw the permit on grounds that it can afford to abandon plans in Malibu because it has other farmer’s market projects and because Cornucopia paid for an environmental education program in Malibu with some money it made from the market.

Sherman Oaks

Freeway Jam:

The California Transportation Commission restored funding for a carpool lane through the Sepulveda Pass that was one of a number of L.A.-area projects the commission had threatened not to fund. The $730 million project would add a high-occupancy vehicle lane to the San Diego (405) Freeway from the Santa Monica (10) Freeway to the Ventura (101) Freeway in Sherman Oaks. The commission, charged with administering the $19.9 billion transportation bond California voters approved last fall, initially had indicated it would not fund the project and several others planned for the Los Angeles area. The commission later reversed course after intense lobbying by U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and other public officials.

Studio City

Channel Change:

Studio City-based Hallmark Channel is launching a new brand identity. The six-year-old channel will now use the theme “Make Yourself at Home” and add new music, graphics and color scheme. The updated scheme, which has already been teased through a series of commercials on the network was scheduled to launch March 1. In a statement, Hallmark Channel President and CEO Henry Schleiff said the re-branding would help the network remain connected to its core values.

Santa Clarita

New Dealership:

A new luxury car showroom originally set to finish construction early last year in the Valencia Auto Mall is set to open this spring. Work is expected to finish by the end of March on the state-of-the-art Valencia BMW dealership at Cinema Drive and Valencia Boulevard, said dealer operator Gary Marco. The dealer bought the 6.3-acre property, which sits behind the William S. Hart Pony Baseball Center and near a Mercedes-Benz dealership that opened in December 2005, from The Newhall Land and Farming Co. in October 2004. The project was originally scheduled to open last year, but was hampered by some holdups, Marco said.

Expensive Homes:

Santa Clarita experienced the second largest increase in median home prices in the state during January, according to a study by the California Association of Realtors. The cost of an average home increased 30.8 percent to $531,000 for the month. Other local areas didn’t fare as well in Stevenson Ranch, for example, the median dropped 34.5 percent to $525,000. The highest increase statewide was in Laguna Niguel, where prices rose 55 percent.

Downtown

Business Banking:

Discovery Bank, a specialized business bank headquartered in San Marcos, opened its first Los Angeles branch office at 707 Wilshire Blvd. Jim Dorian will lead the newest branch as senior vice president and regional branch manager. The bank offers a variety of deposit and loan products for businesses including commercial real estate, construction, accounts receivable, equipment financing, leases, lines of credit, and SBA loans. Discovery Bank is initiating a program at the Los Angeles location to reward clients who maintain large checking account balances. The company also has a location in Poway.

Return on Investment:

TCW Group Inc., an L.A.-based money manager completed the sale of New XCL-China, Ltd. to Beijing-based Sinochem Corp. XCL-China owns and develops oil reserves off the northeast coast of China. TCW shareholders worked with co-investors to sell the company for $228 million. The transaction closes a decade long investment.

New Media:

Jay Levin, the former publisher and founder of L.A. Weekly, recently launched L.A.-based Real Talk Media Group, a media company targeting ethnically diverse, upscale metropolitan communities with offices at 1640 N. Spring St. The company’s first properties are RealTalk L.A. magazine and Realtalkla.com. The first issue of RealTalk L.A. will reach more than 250,000 readers through free distribution at locations throughout the city and will be available by home delivery by May 2007. Upcoming coverage includes multi-cultural Hollywood, and the economic transformation of Los Angeles. Realtalkla.com will include frequently updated news stories, blogs and a downloadable calendar of events. The site is scheduled to premier in April.

Silver Lake

Apartments Sold:

Hawthorne Regency Luxury Apartments at 7076 Hawthorne Ave. sold for $18.4 million, or about $368,000 per unit. The 50-unit building was built in 2005 and includes six stories for a total of 69,528 square feet. Each unit has two bedrooms, laundry facilities and a fireplace. Hawthorne Regency Apartments LLC is the buyer and will assume the seller’s existing loans on the property.

Sarah Filus