The Cheesecake Factory said today it expects to restate past results based on preliminary findings of its investigation into its past stock option practices. The Calabasas Hills-based restaurant operator said that, as a result of its review, it will miss its second quarter filing deadline with the SEC. The company said it has not yet determined the amount of the adjustments it will have to make.

Lisa Porche-Burke is explaining that when she arrived at Phillips Graduate Institute in 1999, the school’s primary offering was a master’s program in marriage and family therapy. The two-year program, she says, meant that each year, the school had to replenish half of its student body. Then, with a sense of humor one comes to see as characteristic of Phillip’s president and CEO, she tells her visitor, “What we really needed to do in order to be viable was to have longer term programs. Any business that loses 50 percent of its revenue base every year is not necessarily going to be around for the long haul.” Porche-Burke’s search for a better business model has thus far led to a doctorate level program in psychology and the school’s latest move into fields that combine business management and the behavioral sciences on which Phillips was founded, including a doctoral program in organizational consulting and its newest addition set to start this September, a master’s degree program in leadership and human resources management. And Porche-Burke, who joined the school in 1999, is now eyeing other business-oriented programs such as executive coaching. Founded as the California Family Study Center to provide training in psychology, Phillips Graduate Institute, with campuses in Encino and Tarzana, now offers eight degree programs. The institute also runs California Family Counseling Center, providing a range of community services from parenting groups to psychological testing programs. The center also provides “real life” training opportunities for the school’s students. Porche-Burke, who last week was honored by the American Psychological Association’s society for the psychological study of ethnic minority issues for distinguished contributions, talked to the Business Journal about the increasing role behavioral science plays in the business arena. Question: How did the leadership and human resources management program come to be? Answer: I had been looking for a human resources professional for the institute. What I encountered in that process, which led us to the new master’s in leadership and human resources management, is I was having a very challenging time finding the type of person that I thought could be effective within our organization. There were people out there that understood all the technical aspects but didn’t understand the human aspects of human resource management, or I found people that understood the human aspect but didn’t have the technical expertise. And I thought we should be producing these professionals. If I was having this problem other CEOs were having the same type of challenge. So I began to do some research and talk with a number of CEOs in a number of different kinds of companies, and I found that was exactly the case. I found that most CEOs ended up hiring two people, one to do the technical aspect and one to do the human aspect. Q: How does the leadership and human resources management program solve that problem? A: This program exposes students to not only the technical aspect of human resource management, but also how to be effective change agents within the organization: How to work effectively with a broad group of people; how to address interpersonal issues; how to help people with negotiation and conflict resolution, all of those human pieces that don’t often get addressed in a traditional program. Q: You worked a lot with Boeing to develop this program. Has Boeing made a commitment to send some of its employees to the program and do you expect other corporations will do the same? A: Boeing had made that commitment and my hope is to begin to dialogue with other corporations and to begin to solicit their support as well. Q: How does a school like yours, which has its roots in touchy-feely kinds of disciplines, incorporate business’s bottom line orientation into the training? A: The program is designed to expose them to the business side as well as the human side. For example they’ll be exposed to how to deal with high absenteeism, turnover, what the rules are in terms of policies and adherence to policies. But on the other hand they’ll be taught, how do you help people be effective negotiators or work to their peak. All the issues businesses confront have an underlying psychological component. The more you can get people to come to work the more you understand how they work and how they can be effective then that’s going to help your bottom line. Theories of motivation came out of the field of psychology for example. Q: Where, in your opinion, is the educational system generally falling short in preparing students? A: That’s a very lengthy question. I’ll tell you one of the things I notice. I notice students applying to a graduate school today are not as well prepared for writing. It’s not just can they write a sentence. But putting a set of ideas together in a coherent, logical fashion to illustrate a particular point or tell a particular story and that’s because I’ve decided the classes at the undergraduate level are so massive that the kind of attention you and I profited from is not as prevalent today. In addition I think with the introduction of technology, everything is online. No one goes to the library and looks through the stacks. They punch a button and have access to information almost immediately so the ability to identify a project and take it through all the steps is more challenging. Q: Do you think there will come a time when even a school like this will offer remedial programs? A: Oh yes. We offer support programs. We have a writing lab that we provide for two reasons. One, to help them improve their writing skills, but the second part is there are technical aspects to writing papers in the field of psychology. And as various and sundry needs arise, we pay attention to them and should we need, we’ll put together a support program. Q: Your educational background is in psychology from the undergraduate through the doctorate level, yet your career has mostly been in education. Did you want to do therapy at any point? A: I did an internship at Boston University School of Medicine in the department of psychology and psychiatry. It was designed to teach skills working with the underserved population. It was housed in a hospital setting, but we also worked out in the community. Subsequent to my internship, I was a part-time school psychologist. I thought about it, but life just took a different course, and I still felt like I was involved in training people to be effective practitioners and I found I had a skill for the administrative side of things and it just evolved that way. Q: Do you think the business community has become more responsive to personal and psychological issues related to the workplace or less responsive? A: I think they’re becoming more responsive because I think that many of the businesses are beginning to realize that if you’ve got people that are happy and functioning effectively it’s going to improve their bottom line. I also think the workforce has changed dramatically, and you’re having more and more women in the workplace, many of whom have families and children they’re responsive to, and if you want to get the most out of your employees you have to come up with out-of-the box thinking in terms of work schedules and when you have meetings and what kinds of demands you place in terms of travel. So as the workforce changes, so must the way you deal with your employees. Lisa Porche-Burke Title: President, Phillips Graduate Institute Born: Nov. 9, 1954, Los Angeles Education: Bachelors’ degree, Psychology, University of Southern California, 1976; Master’s degree, Ph.D, counseling psychology, University of Notre Dame, 1981, 1983. Most Admired Person: Nelson Mandela Personal: Married, three daughters, ages 20, 17, 13

A recent Guardian Life Insurance Co. of America study of married Baby Boomers found a surprising disparity in how men and women view retirement planning. Released last month, “Leading-Edge Boomers: Rethinking Retirement & Exploring Annuities” surveyed 1,019 adults between 50 and 59 and uncovered vastly diverging ideas on how most men and women plan to pay for their retirement years. The main point of contention, the study found, was the role of annuities, which women typically see as a substantial source of income during retirement while men would prefer to direct the money toward dependents. Similarly, women want a slow and steady income stream, similar to what they receive as a full-time employee. Men, on the other hand, want to leave behind a lump-sum death payment to dependents, the study said. Locally, brokers have long seen that men and women have different ideas about financial planning. But many brokers said the two sides are actually more likely to see eye-to-eye today more than ever before. “It’s kind of a mixed bag,” said Jim Bruno of the Westlake Village firm Bruno Associates, who has been in the financial planning business for 30 years. The main schism, Bruno said, is about how the genders view their cumulative nest egg and how to make it last. “There’s a tendency for the men to want to leave a legacy for the children whereas many of the spouses tend to be a little bit more concerned for their retirement needs,” he said. That doesn’t surprise Adriane G. Berg, an elder law attorney and author of “How Not to Go Broke at 102: Achieving Everlasting Wealth.” She said the difference is the result of a simple fact: Women generally still live longer than men. “Longevity is a woman’s issue,” Berg said, because wives typically outlive husbands and therefore have a vested interest in making sure the cash lasts. “Women are very concerned about not outliving their money. There’s a transition that happens,” she said. Mark A. Davis, a principal with Kravitz Davis Sansone in Encino, said that in his experience, the longevity issue isn’t too far below the surface for women planning how to live after they or their spouse stops working. As a result, wives will often look to investing with a cautious eye, he said. “Women will have longer life expectancies and will invest more conservatively,” Davis said. But it’s not the only factor at play. Judith Chipps, a longtime financial advisor and first vice president of investments at Merrill Lynch in Encino, said men and women often have dissimilar ideas about what they want to do in their twilight years. She cited the recent Merrill Lynch New Retirement Study of 5,000 Baby Boomers that showed about 75 percent had no intention of retiring at all. These days, an increasing number of men are electing to work well after 65, and only cutting back slightly to spend more time with their families. More women, on the other hand, are electing to use retirement years to try a new career path or get involved with their community, Chipps said. “They intend to postpone old age and create a whole new life stage that includes a balance of work and active living,” she said. Gender equals? Most brokers said the disparities are muted compared to previous generations because most couples today don’t have much of a plan in the first place. “When it comes to saving for retirement, I think both sexes are doing a poor job,” said Dennis DeYoung, a broker with Brookstreet Securities in Northridge. These days, DeYoung said, retirement and nest eggs typically aren’t something couples think of until the last minute. “It sneaks up on them,” he said. The Guardian Life study found similar results. About half who participated agreed that they didn’t know how much income they would need to save for retirement. “We haven’t trained our populace to that,” Davis said. He reasoned that the generations after World War II of which Baby Boomers are the first are simply ill-equipped for what comes after their working lives cease. “We have to put a lot more effort into training,” he said. That lack of knowledge, however, has meant both sexes are starting from something of a blank slate, which makes them more likely to see eye-to-eye. “For the most part, it becomes a collaborative effort,” Bruno said. “There’s a little more synergy between husband and wife. Maybe it’s out of necessity.” That may also be a product of the fact women and men also divide financial responsibilities. A generation ago, finances were traditionally handled by husbands, a fact no longer true for Boomers at the cusp of retiring, said Chipps of Merrill Lynch. “For younger investors, men and women are much more similar,” she said. Another change is the issue of leaving behind money for dependents. Twenty years ago, leaving behind an estate or other finances was a major priority, Bruno said. “But in the past 10 years, people have come to the realization that they are going to live longer,” he said. Both sides need the money now, he said. “Particularly in the state of California, where it’s so expensive to live, there’s a shift in the thinking of both spouses to protect their living needs first and foremost,” he said. “With the cost of living being so high, out of necessity, that paradigm has shifted.” All of which makes long-term planning all the more important, Bruno said. With more demands for cash today, DeYoung said that few people now how to make the money last. “The priorities that people have are all screwed up,” he said. Those that are proactive often and wrongly see their homes as a source for equity, he said. “People hope the rising value of homes will pay off,” he said. “A house isn’t a retirement plan.” And forget about Social Security, DeYoung said. “It’s just a matter of time before it runs out,” he said. “The government’s not going to bail anyone out.” Instead, DeYoung tells couples to start a simple plan: start saving. “I try to get people to save as much as possible,” he said. “You just can’t under-save.” And that’s something everyone can agree with.

Business leaders and city officials have turned their attention to Sacramento in an effort to save a Northeast San Fernando Valley enterprise zone which helps provide financial incentives for business who locate there and employ local workers. The Northeast Valley Enterprise Zone risks losing its designation because it no longer meets the criteria of being zoned 51 percent for commercial and/or industrial use due to much residential development in the area over the years. The Los Angeles Community Development Department is preparing an application to the state to preserve the zone, which expires in October, but possibly at the expense of losing some businesses currently within its boundaries. “At best it would reduce the size of the zone to a fraction of what it currently is,” said Cliff Weiss, a senior management analyst with the department. “At worst we may not have a viable application area at all.” As the city moves ahead with the application, focus turns to a pending bill before the State Senate granting an additional two years to all enterprise zones in the state. With the additional time, it is easier to address the issues facing the enterprise zone rather than dealing hurriedly with it in a limited amount of time, said Roberto Barragan, president of the Valley Economic Development Center. The VEDC enlisted the help of the Valley Industry and Commerce Association and the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley to come up with a strategy to save the enterprise zone. Los Angeles City Councilman Tony Cardenas, whose district includes the enterprise zone, is pushing for passage of the bill in the Senate. A priority is being placed on retaining the businesses in the enterprise zone that provide jobs for locals, said VICA President Brendan Huffman. “If we have to modify it, we have to modify it,” Huffman said of the zone’s boundaries. The Northeast Valley Enterprise Zone was created in 1986 and renewed in 2001. The boundaries take in much of Pacoima and portions of Sun Valley and Panorama City. Businesses within the boundaries are eligible for local tax incentives, the most popular being an employee tax credit of $31,000 per employee over a five-year period. Other incentives are a rebate on sales tax for certain equipment and parts purchases; a business expense deduction capped at $20,000; and a five-year subsidy from the L.A. Department of Water and Power. Currently, 165 businesses take advantage of the employee tax credit, Weiss said. Precision Dynamics Corp. and SDI Industries are among the zone’s largest employers Precision has 350 employees at its headquarters in San Fernando and a warehouse in Pacoima, while SDI, a consulting and design firm for the retail trades, has 200 employees in Pacoima, many of whom come from within a 20-mile radius. The credit is a positive factor that offsets some of the negative factors of doing business in California, said Mark Segal, Precision’s chief financial officer. “We’re trying to keep as many jobs here in California as possible,” Segal said. “That is our desire and this is something that helps us.” “There is some economic advantage; it does give a little breathing room,” added SDI Chairman Don DeSanctis. Worst-case scenario If legislative action does not come to the rescue and the enterprise zone loses its status in October, the employee tax credit remains as long as the business keeps the employee and the DWP subsidy continues as long as the business stays in the boundaries, Weiss said. Enterprise zones are recognized as a valuable recruitment and retention tool for economically depressed areas and provide jobs to local residents. The tax credits reduce costs which make a business more competitive. A competitive business is more likely to stay put, an important factor in a time when the Valley and other parts of Los Angeles face a shrinking amount of land available for manufacturing jobs. “If there are not places for businesses to operate that’s another thing that drives them away from the area,” said John Anderson, of California Manufacturing Technology Consultants. “Manufacturing jobs are typically on average much higher paying than retail or service industry jobs.” While the VEDC’s Barragan believes that the loss of the enterprise status would be a “deal breaker” for some businesses, DeSanctis said there were a lot of factors to take into consideration about moving a business and that sometimes one just needed to bite the bullet. Three times over the years he’s considered moving out of state and always stayed. He doesn’t want to leave Pacoima because so many of his employees come from the area. “What’s the matter with the state legislature? What’s their problem,” DeSanctis asked. “Are they mad at businesspeople?

QPC Lasers, Inc. notified the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday that it would file late its second quarter financial statement. In its notification, the Sylmar-based developer of high power semiconductor lasers said that additional time was needed to file the required report. In a press release, however, the company announced that commercial sales and government contract contributed to a 61 percent increase in revenues in the first six months of its fiscal year. Revenues were $842,000 for the first six months, as compared to $523,000 for the first six months of 2005. The company also announced that it had a net loss of $6.2 million for that six month period. The company did not provide figures of how that number compared with the first six months of 2005. During the second quarter of 2006, the company won contracts totaling approximately $4.6 million, from which $2.3 million of revenue is expected in the next 12 months. Based on the QPC’s total backlog, revenue for the calendar year 2006 is expected to be in the range of $2 million to $2 million. “Our healthy backlog combined with the expected release of new products in the coming months, position us well for growth in sales in the second half of the year,” QPC Chief Financial Officer George Lintz said.

The Encino Chamber of Commerce hosts a business and professional development luncheon on identity theft protection. 11:45 a.m. Encino Golf Course 16821 Burbank Blvd., Encino (818) 789-4711 encinochamber.org

It might be the longest development process in Sherman Oaks history. The redevelopment of a rundown stretch of Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks has hit yet another snag despite years of working with neighborhood groups and city officials to get the project built. The Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association has appealed a decision to approve the project, an 88-unit condominium development with ground floor retail between Ventura Boulevard and Moorpark Street at Hazeltine Avenue. The appeal hearing is scheduled to take place in September. Laing Urban, a division of John Laing Homes that specializes in infill locations, received approval for the project, dubbed Mosaic, in June. Although the Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council has thrown its support behind the project and city officials have given it their support, the homeowner group contends that more traffic mitigation and parking is needed. It’s even revisiting the premise of the development. “We question whether the San Fernando Valley, with its suburban lifestyle, is suited to condominium living,” said Ellen Vukovich, who oversees SOHA’s land use committee. But the debate over Mosaic did not begin with the current appeal. The project site was first identified for residential development in 2002 when PCS Development, a builder of luxury rental apartments acquired it. PCS went through years of talks with various neighborhood groups, downsizing the project considerably from its original size of more than 150 units in order to respond to the neighboring community. But by the time the project, for 118 rental units was approved, the market for luxury rentals had softened, and PCS sold the entitled parcel to Laing, which builds condos as well as single-family homes. Laing downsized the project to total 88 condo units, increased the parking allotment and conducted new traffic studies, said Dana Yogel, vice president of development for Laing Urban. It also hired new architects and brought the community back in to work on upgrading the design of the building fa & #231;ade. “I feel very comfortable that this is a good project for people in the community,” said Rick Mayer, a Sherman Oaks resident who chairs the land use committee for the Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council. SOHA contends that the community has changed since the original 118 units were entitled. There are now many more development projects either under way or in the pipeline in Sherman Oaks, and the solutions developed a few years ago will no longer suffice for current conditions. But something else has happened as the development process has unfolded. John Laing Homes was acquired by Emaar Properties, a Middle East real estate development company that is controlled by the Dubai government. And some think that has spurred the homeowner group to bring the project back to the drawing board. “There was a flyer passed around at our board meeting, and the flyer basically was saying they’ve got deep pockets and they should be doing anything we want to have,” said Mayer. Vukovich’s response is, why not? “For a city so starved for traffic mitigation, this is a developer that clearly has the funds,” Vukovich said. “That’s the position we’ll be taking. Tell us why you can’t pay for this. The more you mitigate the better.” But for Laing Urban, it’s starting to look like a developer just can’t win. “When PCS went through this project, there were three concerns,” said Yogel. “Can you make it condos? Can you make it less units? Can you make it more attractive? All of which we’ve done, and it’s still not good enough.”

A flurry of hotel construction is underway near Magic Mountain in Santa Clarita amid uncertainty about the future of the theme park. City officials and hoteliers point to high occupancy rates and demand from business customers as indicators that there is a need for more hotels in the area even without business from Magic Mountain tourists. Well over 200 rooms are under construction near the park and are slated to come online over the next year. New York-based Six Flags is considering closing the park as the company re-brands itself as a family-friendly chain. Six Flags officials say Magic Mountain, which features a dozen thrill rides and roller coasters, will not fit into its new business strategy. The company is considering selling the park to another theme park operator or other buyers which could result in the site being developed for residential use. Near Interstate 5 and the Newhall Ranch Road exit, Valencia-based Ocean Park Hotels is building a 140-room Courtyard by Marriott expected to open by early next year, said company President James Flagg. Ocean Park earlier this year built a 112-room La Quinta Inn & Suites in Stevenson Ranch and a nearby Holiday Inn Express in 2003. On an adjacent parcel, the Palm Beach, Fla.-based hotel real estate investment trust Innkeepers USA is building a 157-room Embassy Suites slated to open next summer. Jason Crawford, an administrator in the economic development office of Santa Clarita, said that even if Magic Mountain does close, hotel rooms in the Santa Clarita Valley are already in high demand by business travelers and out-of-town guests. “There are so many businesses in the industrial center here that utilize the hotels for employees that are coming in for meetings or visitors,” he said. “There’s a good market for more rooms and more conference space.” He also pointed to sky-high occupancy rates in Santa Clarita, which has just 11 hotels and sits along a busy highway. But Innkeepers CEO Jeffrey H. Fisher, whose company has 70 hotels mostly in Florida, Illinois and Washington state said closure of Magic Mountain would be a major blow to his new hotel. He said he was unaware of Six Flags’ decision to sell the theme park. Fisher said that along with the area’s strong hotel occupancy numbers, Magic Mountain was a major reason his company decided to expand in the area. The company paid $3.7 million for the parcel in 2004. “We look at the success in any hotel market and we saw a great opportunity there. It felt like it was good growth in the area,” he said. “If (Magic Mountain) closes, it wouldn’t be good.” The average occupancy rate for rooms in the area in May was 87.22 percent, the highest in the county and far ahead of the county average of 79.16 percent, according to the hotel trend tracking firm PKF Consulting.

In the greater Valley area, one gym operator has filed Chap. 11 and several others have sold out. But these recent occurrences hide a larger trend the fitness business, once a niche easily overlooked, is becoming mainstream. Independents are posting significant revenue gains at a time when other retail businesses are stagnating. And some of the largest operators are attracting large venture and equity capital firms to the tune of billions of dollars. “All the press about the links between obesity and health and productivity is really making the market sexy,” said Keith Albright, senior vice president, franchising for Gold’s Gym International Inc. “There are people looking at this saying this is going to be one of those trends for the next decade.” That’s not to say that the business is easy. Opening a gym can take as much as $4 million for one with all the bells and whistles, and competition from the large, national players is fierce. Then too there are pitfalls not unlike those other small businesses face. Just ask Bruce Gordon, the president and CEO of Bodies in Motion, a North Hills-based regional fitness club with four locations in Encino, Northridge, West L.A., Pasadena and, its most recent addition now closed, Irvine. “Our last club did us in,” said Gordon, whose company filed Chap. 11 in June. “All our other locations are profitable. Every other club I’ve opened has always been profitable.” Gordon said the company was forced into the voluntary bankruptcy filing because of a lease deal with the landlord of its Irvine facility. The owners, Gordon said, embarked on a major renovation of the parking facilities at The Irvine Spectrum, essentially eliminating the parking Bodies in Motion depended on. By the time the situation became clear, Gordon had already committed to constructing the new gym. Another fitness club owner, who was operating under the name Total Woman in Camarillo, simply shut that facility down. David Hill, the owner of the club, did not return a phone call seeking comment. Operators are quick to point out that running a gym is not for the fainthearted. Some who try it, “don’t really have the expertise to be in the business,” said Art Stone, CEO of Total Woman Gym & Atmosphere Day Spa, a fitness club with seven locations and two more on the way that has been in operation since 1968. (The Camarillo operation had no relation to Stone’s gyms.) “Say you’re a young person and you’re personal training. You think it’s lucrative because you have all these appointments. Now here you are, you have your own business, you’ve got $1,200 a month for equipment, you have to pay insurance, you have to pay for lights, and once you add it up, you say, ‘I can’t really afford this.'” That, however is changing. Gold’s Gym used to get a lot of body builders and fitness trainers signing on to its franchise program, but lately, its franchisees are coming not from the fitness industry, but from all kinds of different business backgrounds, Albright said. And there are plenty of them. The company has about 450 franchise locations in addition to about 50 corporate gyms in the U.S. and expects that number to grow to 800 franchise locations and 200 corporate locations by 2010. Michael Sanciprian, who owns two L.A. Workout locations in Camarillo, and is in the process of expanding and relocating one of them, is a fitness industry veteran. He started out with Jack LaLanne, known in the industry as the father of fitness, spent a decade with Family Fitness (the predecessor company to 24 Hour Fitness) and consulted to the industry before buying the Camarillo clubs a few months ago. “There’s a lot of intelligent people and a lot of money coming into the business,” said Sanciprian who plans to have a 10-location chain in five years. “Everyone is looking at the business as a real business right now. No one took it seriously before.” Last year 24 Hour Fitness sold its chain of about 345 fitness clubs to private equity firm Forstmann Little & Co. for $1.6 billion. Bally Total Fitness Holding Corp. is on the block and could fetch as much as $1.2 billion, some experts have said. A number of things are driving these investments, those in the industry say. Besides all the attention that’s been placed on obesity and the importance of exercise for fending off a variety of conditions from heart disease to diabetes, employers and insurance companies are increasingly willing to foot the bill for these club memberships. “More and more employers are saying there are reliable statistics that for every dollar I spend on fitness I’m going to get it back in lower absenteeism, lower health costs and higher productivity,” said Albright. That trend may not necessarily bode well for the smaller operators, Albright notes. Large employers, insurance companies and labor unions who opt for paying their workers and clients for gym memberships are more likely to want to cut corporate deals with the very large players. But smaller operators can still thrive, usually because they have carved a niche that distinguishes them from the very large fitness clubs. For the first quarter of 2006, independents saw their revenues rise an average of 3.8 percent to $1.2 million, according to a survey by the International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association. On a same store basis, the average increase was 5.1 percent. Sanciprian points out that his gyms compete with a 24 Hour Fitness location in Camarillo and the monthly dues rate is higher than what his larger rival offers. Sanciprian’s competitive edge is simply that he is local. “I live in Camarillo. I shop in the grocery store,” he said. “I feel the heartbeat of the club and the community everyday and I’m making decisions based on what our members and our customers and our employees want.” Stone, too, attributes much of his company’s success to its niche serving only women. A former hairdresser, Stone says, “There’s too many hair salons too. It depends on what kind of operator you are. We’re adding more to the salons, more classes, new types of equipment and we’re going to make it like it’s a resort in your own backyard. If you’re Joe Blow on the corner, you can’t keep up with the big boys on the block. They’re going to put out a cheaper price and fill the clubs. You gotta have a better product. You gotta care more and fight harder.”

Michael Resnick is not your typical developer. For one thing, his name is perhaps most closely associated not with tearing down properties, but with preserving them. Resnick was co-founder of the group that spearheaded the effort to save the Glendale Federal Savings & Loan Association building on Brand Boulevard. And he has come up with complex schemes not only to preserve other architecture in L.A. but also to put it to more productive use at the same time. Now Resnick has turned his attention to an office building at Chandler Boulevard between Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Agnes Avenue in Valley Village, one of those slap-em-up boxes from the 1970s that the community has long regarded as an eye-sore. His plan is to strip the building down to the frame and re-purpose some of the adjacent parking to create a mini-village on the property, and he has partnered up with none other than Holliday Development in Emeryville to do just that. “I had to literally go up to San Francisco to get somebody who I felt understood the site,” Resnick said recently. “When I talked to some of the locals, they said, ‘we can sell the parking lots and put up condos.'” Holliday, an award-winning developer, is credited with bringing lofts to San Francisco and for transforming many of the communities in the Bay Area with its cutting-edge residential designs. Resnick, who said candidly that the project is just too big for someone with his experience, said he chose Holliday because he envisions something that is more than the makeover of a single building. The property, which includes some vacant land, parking areas and a large office building, sits across from the Orange Line busway and it abuts a residential neighborhood of single family homes. What Resnick wants to do is to turn the office building into condominium units and construct townhomes adjacent to it, creating a kind of border or entryway for the residential neighborhood and helping to give it an identity. Resnick has dabbled in adaptive re-use projects before, albeit not to the scale of his Chandler Corners project. Most recently, he fell under the spell of a small, multifamily building in North Hollywood that was originally built for workforce housing by Richard Neutra, a mid-20th century architect of what were trendsetting homes at the time. Several of Neutra’s works have been designated historical monuments in L.A. The building had fallen under considerable disrepair, along with the block on Radford Street where it is located. So Resnick, whose company is called Not-A-Box Housing in Studio City, acquired not just the building, but the block it stood on as well. “I knew this was the only building of its kind in the world,” Resnick said. Resnick figured that making the building marketable would require not just renovating it, but somehow transforming the block on which it stood. He sold the other properties on the street to his friends at cost with the option to buy them back, and went about renovating the architectural jewel that he felt would be the centerpiece of his work. “This gives me two to three years to figure out what to develop on the site,” Resnick said. “In the meantime, the neighborhood is taken care of, and by the way, the owners of the other properties will make a profit when it is time to sell.” The renovated apartment building opened with an event benefiting Neutra’s home and studio, which has been preserved and is now under the care of California State Polytechnic University Pomona. Tentative plans for Chandler Corners call for about 102 units and about 50 row homes. The first public hearing on the proposal is scheduled for Aug. 29. Industrial Squeeze Can vacancy rates get any lower for industrial properties in the San Fernando Valley? As of the second quarter of 2006, the average vacancy rate in the Valley had fallen to 2.1 percent for industrial properties, versus 3.2 percent in the same period a year ago, according to a report released by Grubb & Ellis. “On a year-over-year basis, L.A. North delivered the most impressive performance of all the markets in L.A. County,” the authors of the report wrote. “Since second quarter of 2005, vacancy rates in L.A. North have decreased by 190 basis points thanks to an impressive 2.8 million square feet of positive absorption.” That is not necessarily good news for the companies that might be in the market for additional or new space. The Valley’s industrial vacancy rate for years has been nominal, usually under 5 percent, but as space tightens even further, there is also little promise of any relief in sight. As of the second quarter, a mere 534,000 square feet of new industrial space was under construction in the San Fernando and Conejo valleys, although Santa Clarita does have about 1.3 million square feet of industrial space in development, the Grubb & Ellis report revealed. Lancaster Sale Antelope Valley Plaza, a 126,260-square-foot retail center in Lancaster, was sold for $20.2 million. The center, at 20th Street West and Avenue J, is anchored by Vons and Sav-on. It was fully leased at the time of the sale. Dixie Walker and Charley Simpson, brokers with Grubb & Ellis in Newport Beach, represented the seller, Columbus Pacific Properties. The buyer, AVP Lancaster LLC, a Los Altos-based investment group, was represented by Brian Fox with Guardian Equity Growth. West Valley Retail Sale Woodland Hills Village, a 70,721-square-foot strip mall at DeSoto Avenue and Ventura Boulevard, was sold for $19.7 million. The center is fully occupied. Richard Walter and Donald MacLellan of Faris Lee Investments represented the buyer, Abrams & Associates, and the seller, SCI Real Estate Investments. Condo Conversion Aslanian Development Corp. has acquired an 11-unit condo conversion project in Sherman Oaks for $2,035,000. The complex is located at 4470 Woodman Ave. Warren Berzack and Greg DeRubeis, brokers with Investment Real Estate Associates, represented the seller, a private individual. Berzack also represented the buyer. The brokers also transacted the sale of an 8-unit condo project in Sherman Oaks to Rye Partners LLC for $1.7 million. Berzack and DeRubeis represented the buyer. Matt Weiss of Archwood Real Estate Inc. represented the seller, a private investor. Senior reporter Shelly Garcia can be reached at (818) 316-3123 or by e-mail at [email protected] .