Valley business owners are more than a little tired of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s efforts to take over commercial sites to build new schools. So they’re fighting back. The Valley Industry and Commerce Association claims the school district is pursuing a policy of eminent domain that targets successful commercial properties, while all but ignoring residential locations or vacant industrial land. On July 25, the organization’s executive committee passed a motion to lobby the school district to change its policies and stop going after businesses. School board members say they are, in fact, pursuing projects in residential areas. But VICA doesn’t think so. “(In one case, the) district needed to take 20 single-family residences to make the lot big enough (to accommodate a new school), and they refused to do it,” said Fred Gaines, a VICA vice chairman who voted for the measure. “We say, ‘Look, you have to look at all the sites involved.'” The LAUSD must find 100 new-school locations throughout Los Angeles to accommodate an increase of 80,000 students projected over the next eight years. To do that, the district will have to use its power of eminent domain to seize some properties, paying fair market value to their owners. The district must find the sites soon; on July 1, $1.5 billion in funding from the 1998 bond measure Proposition 1A became available to state school districts. The money is doled out on a first-come, first-served basis, and the LAUSD has yet to submit the majority of its school sites for funding approval. LAUSD officials insist the district is considering all properties. “We’re looking for appropriate sites, including commercial and some residential,” said Robert Buxbaum, general manager of facilities for the LAUSD. “I wouldn’t say we’re looking at one or the other.” VICA’s motion was prompted by officials at department-store chain Robinson’s-May, whose North Hollywood headquarters was targeted by the school district as a possible school site. Robinson’s-May officials immediately appealed to Valley business groups for support; they claim that if the site is taken over, it would have a significant impact on the company’s business. Gaines said VICA officials plan to go to a future school board meeting to urge that more residential and industrial sites be considered, though they haven’t yet decided when to make the pitch. School board member Caprice Young, who represents part of the San Fernando Valley, said the district is “absolutely” looking at residential properties. For example, she said, the board is looking at a school site off Lankershim Boulevard in North Hollywood that would include a parcel of land in a residential neighborhood. The district is also considering a former Department of Water and Power facility, also in the Valley, which she described as “quasi-industrial” land. “There’s more of a tendency to look at residential rather than industrial,” Young said. That’s because industrial sites often come with pollution problems, as became all too clear after the district sunk $170 million into the contaminated Belmont Learning Complex site in downtown L.A. only to shut down the project after cleanup costs continued to skyrocket. While the Robinson’s-May site is still under consideration, Young said the board would prefer to find another site rather than condemn a successful business. Yet Gaines and other business leaders still don’t believe the school board is taking residential sites seriously. Gaines says political pressures continue to prevent the district from attempting to use its power of eminent domain for residential properties. “Eminent domain, no matter whose property is taken away, is a difficult thing to do. Nobody wants their property taken away,” Gaines said. “Not everyone’s going to be happy.” Gaines said VICA believes commercially viable sites like the Robinson’s-May property should not be considered, arguing that such moves hurt the community by taking away jobs. The group also wants the district to look at retrofitting and reusing existing schools before taking over commercial properties. School board member David Tokofsky, who sits on the district’s facilities committee, said he understands VICA’s anger. “The process with Robinson’s-May has been infuriating to me, the way in which the district behaved as a totalitarian state,” Tokofsky said. “The district didn’t engage people and community folks in a community process and has created another division between the school district and the community and business community.” Tokofsky said he would like to see the district pursue a policy of selecting sites with the help of businesses and homeowners, and building new schools in blighted areas as a type of redevelopment. He said he would like the district to use eminent domain for downtrodden businesses and drug houses or apartments that have been cited for slumlord conditions, rather than sites where prospering companies operate. “I’d like to see the district put itself in a role of redeveloper rather than alienate the community,” he said.

It’s easy to take for granted the riches that have been delivered to our doorsteps by improvements in entertainment technology. To put things in perspective, just go out for a drive. There, you’ll be at the mercy of an entertainment device that hasn’t changed significantly in decades: the car stereo. Oh sure, analog tuners and eight-track tapes have given way to digital displays and CDs. And we can’t overlook the introduction of those giant woofers that provide earthquake-deprived communities with tremors worthy of the San Andreas Fault. But these changes haven’t improved the basic choices available to drivers. If you tire of the music you bought and brought from home, you’re stuck with the repetitive songs and mind-numbing chatter of local radio. It won’t be long, though, before your car radio stops singing the same tune. In the next few years, many of the same technologies that have revolutionized home entertainment will be ready to hit the road. The revolution will begin next year, when two companies will debut satellite radio services that deliver 100 or more channels of digital audio to your car. For $10 a month, you can rise above lowest-common-denominator programming and tune in to Sirius or XM Satellite Radio, the erstwhile HBO and Showtime of the audio airwaves. Traveling music Both companies will rely on satellites and land-based repeaters to broadcast their signals nationwide. To pick them up, you’ll need to pay about $300 for a new car stereo. But satellite-ready radios will be offered as either options or standard equipment beginning next year in cars made by Ford and a few other manufacturers, and XM has negotiated deals to deliver its signal to trucking companies, boats and Avis rental cars. The timing for these services couldn’t be better. Local radio is already losing listeners to the Net, where music fans can download their favorite songs through Napster and other MP3 swapping software. But today’s online music scene is far from the final solution. Fans must spend hours sitting in front of their computers, downloading music and looking for hints about new tunes that might be worth a listen. And if you want to take your music on the road, you’ve got to buy a portable MP3 player and start downloading all over again. This process is fine for those who wish to exercise total control over their music. But for people who just want to turn on a car radio and hear something they’ll like, satellite radio holds much more promise. Just as cable TV caters to audiences fascinated by history, cooking and other niche interests, satellite radio will deliver an unprecedented feast for fans of genres like opera, industrial music, world beat and reggae. Sports nuts will be able to listen to their favorite teams play, even if they’re someone else’s local team. And everyone will be able to tune out smarmy morning DJs, wacky car dealers and other atrocities of local radio. Satellite radio will give drivers the kind of choices Net users already enjoy. And it ought to hold us over until a few more years down the road, when the Internet itself appears on our dashboards. Tuning out commercials General Motors already is introducing limited Net access to its on-board On Star system, but it delivers only the company’s own ad-supported content. What I’m waiting for is a full-on audio browser that can play the same streaming music I hear through my PC. A company called PenguinRadio announced plans earlier this year to produce just such a device. And if car manufacturers aren’t working toward their own audio browsers, they ought to be sued for a negligent lack of foresight. Will drivers pay for high-quality channels and original content of satellite radio when they have a choice of thousands of commercial stations through the Net? Or will home-brewed pirate stations rule the road, pumping pirated MP3s through satellite links to drivers around the world? Will artists themselves launch their own nationwide channels, routing around the record labels directly to their fans? The possibilities will be endless. And that’s quite an improvement over today’s radio, where only the commercials seem that way. To contact syndicated columnist Joe Salkowski, you can e-mail him at [email protected] or write to him c/o Tribune Media Services Inc., 435 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 1400, Chicago, Ill., 60611.

The effort to create neighborhood councils, the single most important charter reform for those seeking to prevent the San Fernando Valley from seceding, has become mired in political bickering and confusion. The result: The very grassroots activists who were supposed to be placated by creation of the councils are now more frustrated than ever. “The process is so slow, it’s grinding to a halt,” said Richard Close, president of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association. “We don’t know who’s eligible to be on the councils, what authority they have, how they operate. It’s total inaction.” The Department of Neighborhood Empowerment and a neighborhood empowerment commission, formed under the charter reform measure passed by L.A. voters last year, are charged with forming a plan that outlines how the advisory neighborhood councils will operate, how many councils there will be, how boundaries will be determined, who can run for the councils and what powers they will have. But so far, after a year of effort, there has not even been a draft plan proposed, and many residents complain that they’ve been left out of the process. Roslyn Stewart, executive director of the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, defends the department’s timeline and outreach, noting that more than 16,000 flyers were distributed throughout the city to inform people of community meetings. “I’ve felt the frustration, but I have a different take on it,” Stewart said. “Frequently when government goes in with a presentation formulated, we’re accused of already deciding what something will look like. We decided to take what we had and go to the community and ask for opinions.” According to the timeline set forth by the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, the draft plan won’t be submitted to the City Council until early December. From that point, the charter gives the council six months to vote on a final plan. Councilwoman Laura Chick, chairwoman of the Government Efficiency Committee, said she understands the frustration that some people are feeling. “There’s not a whole lot of information forthcoming at this point,” Chick said. “I think the public wants to hear what they have to do to become a neighborhood councilor and the basics of how you form a group.” No answers, no feedback So far, the department has held a number of public meetings that allowed for little interaction between commissioners and residents. People who attended the meetings were allowed to submit written questions, but there was no feedback or answers provided. “They keep having these dog-and-pony shows where people write post-it notes,” said Close. “It’s very frustrating. Neighborhood councils were supposed to be the greatest benefit of the new charter.” Bill Powers, vice chair of the United Chambers of Commerce and a former member of the charter task force that came up with the neighborhood councils, said he’s disappointed with the lack of movement. “Sure it’s frustrating, we don’t have anything,” Powers said. “The meetings are pointless, repetitive and extensively exhaustive. The councils should have started July 1.” Powers said the drawn-out process is fueling an increasing lack of interest in the councils. And while the San Fernando Valley seems to be a focus for discontent because of its ongoing secession movement, the frustration has gone beyond Valley borders. Several groups citywide have formed under the umbrella organization CURE Communities United for Real Empowerment in response to what they believe is a lack of outreach to people who are not traditionally active in community groups. “Our main concern is about the process engaged so far, its inability to engage people in a meaningful way and to get thoughts from people and do something about it,” said Adrianne Shropshire, a director at Agenda, a South L.A. nonprofit involved in CURE. “People don’t have a concept of what these commissions could look like.” More meetings to come In September, the department will hold a second series of meetings, this time explaining the process to attendees and providing a view of the draft plan. But some say the meetings aren’t enough. “We can have community meetings until we’re blue in the face,” Chick said. “Somewhere along the way, you have to bite the bullet and make a decision.” Not everyone is disappointed with the department’s progress. Tony Lucente, president of the Studio City Residents Association, said he views the continued hearings as a positive sign that the department wants to hear from a number of people. “I hold a much different view than much of the folks in the Valley,” Lucente said. “I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing (that the process is taking this long). It’s part of the process and I feel they are trying to make a broad initiative and make it more inclusive than in the past.”

A plan to develop an office center on an Agoura Hills site that has seen a number of proposed developments come and go seems to have captured the interest of city officials, at least initially. According to the proposal currently under discussion, J.H. Snyder Co. would build a 400,000-square-foot office park on a 31-acre site off the Kanan Road exit to the Ventura (101) Freeway. The project is one of six developments included in the recently announced joint venture between Snyder and Lexington Commercial Holdings Inc., the Beverly Hills real estate company that would be Snyder’s financial partner in the project. City officials and executives at Snyder, which entered into escrow on the site early this year, cautioned that the discussions are very preliminary and no formal plans have yet been submitted. But city officials added that the project looks promising. “At this point it would appear that the folks with Snyder have listened to the input and are proposing something that would be very compatible not only with the community, but with the topography of the area as well,” said Jeff Reinhardt, an Agoura Hills city councilman. The city has held discussions with potential developers of the site over a 10-year period. Most of the earlier plans have involved retail developments that never made it to the formal application process. The Snyder plan marks the first time an office project has been proposed for the site, Reinhardt said. Cliff Goldstein, a partner at Snyder Co. said the office sector is on an upswing. “The office market dropped off during the early ’90s, but now we see an opportunity for additional supply, so we’re ramping up our interest in developing more office and seeing more opportunities that are out there,” Goldstein said. The city of Agoura Hills has zealously guarded both its quality of life and its environment, and developing the site has raised red flags on both those counts in the past. The parcel abuts a residential area as well as a park, and it sits on a hillside with streams and some wetlands. Reinhardt said the initial drawings that have been presented for the development incorporate Craftsman-style architecture. The low-rise buildings are surrounded by ample park-like space and well-landscaped parking areas. Goldstein said the company is currently working on a proposal that it will formally present to the community and city officials. No date has yet been established for that presentation.

A few years ago, Dr. Bernie Villadiego saw 15 to 20 patients a day, made treatment decisions based on what insurance companies would reimburse, and, ultimately, grew cranky and bored. Today Villadiego, a Chatsworth dentist, averages between six and eight patients a day, performs any number of state-of-the-art procedures and bills for what the treatments are worth. Most of all, Villadiego, says, he’s happy. “As far as my life, it’s more enjoyable. There’s less stress. And I can develop relationships with my patients by spending more time with them,” Villadiego said. What has made the difference is an emerging specialty, esthetic or cosmetic dentistry, that includes a range of procedures from making teeth whiter and brighter to reshaping a smile. So far, only about 200 dentists nationwide have been certified in the specialty by the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentists. But as demand for the services increases, many dentists like Villadiego are flocking to continuing education programs to hone the craft. Two-year-old Esthetic Professionals, the only school in the San Fernando Valley providing such courses, has seen enrollment grow from 40 students when it opened about two years ago to a projected 250 in the coming fall semester. Courses at the Woodland Hills school have expanded from three to 26 in the same period. “In medicine, plastic surgeons do a lot of discretionary treatment,” said Dr. Bruce J. Crispin, a board-certified esthetic dentist, who opened the Woodland Hills school after heading up the UCLA Center for Esthetic Dentistry for more than 10 years. “This is a reason why dentists want to do esthetic dentistry. They want to separate themselves from control of insurance.” Until the advent of the new technologies that make cosmetic dentistry possible, dentists used metals to fill teeth and attached crowns with wires to reconstruct damaged teeth. The result was often unsightly, and the materials broke down over time. At the same time, dental insurance reimbursements have not kept up with increasing costs. “When insurance first became popular in the 1960s, the maximum dental benefit was $1,500 to $2,500, and those maximum benefits are exactly the same today,” said Dr. Sherwin Rosen, a Palos Verdes dentist and member of the communications committee of the California Dental Association. But the cost for a crown today is about $900, nine times the cost 30 years ago. “So you can see that what insurance used to pay for doesn’t begin to pay for much today,” Rosen said. Drill, fill and bill Dentists whose practices are dominated by insurance plans have been forced to adjust their charges accordingly, using less-expensive materials, spending less time with patients and often performing only the procedures that are allowed by the plans. The result is what many call a drill, fill and bill practice that keeps them hopping from one room to another, treating an average of 25 to 30 patients a day. “You can’t develop a sense of trust when you’re going from room to room, and you can’t make a good diagnosis,” said Marilyn Calvo, a student at Esthetic Professionals whose dental practice is in Sherman Oaks. “It’s no way to practice dentistry.” But patients who opt for cosmetic procedures pay for most of the services out of pocket. Freed from the shackles of insurance plans, these dentists say they can earn the same amount of money with half the patient load and offer better service in the bargain. Instead of cutting down a tooth to fit it with a crown, as is accepted practice for teeth that have large, deteriorated fillings or other problems, esthetic dentists may opt for inlays or overlays made of porcelain or other expensive materials that not only look better but also allow the patient to keep more of the original tooth. “You’re not destroying the whole tooth, and that’s what dentistry is all about the conservation of teeth,” Calvo said. Some practitioners simply hang out a shingle calling themselves cosmetic dentists. But increasingly, dentists are opting for special training in the field. At Esthetic Professionals, the most popular course, Contemporary Esthetic Dentistry Residency, is a 24-day program of lectures, lab work and clinical practice, at a tuition cost of $6,300. The tuition fee is only the beginning of the investment the specialty requires. High-tech equipment Cameras that allow patients to view the inside of their mouths on a video screen can cost upwards of $10,000. Along with other high-tech equipment needed for the specialty, the setup costs for an esthetic practice can range anywhere from $50,000 to $200,000. But once they recoup their investment, dentists estimate that their billings can increase by 30 percent to 40 percent over what they would generate in a typical insurance-driven practice. Tooth bleaching, one of the least expensive esthetic procedures, can range from $300 if the patient does most of the work at home, to $1,000 for a procedure done in the office. Veneers the overlays used to reshape and repair teeth can range from $500 to $3,000 per tooth. Catherine Carfaro, a patient of Dr. Calvo, is a fan of the new technology. Carfaro, who chipped her two front teeth in the first grade, recently decided to get them repaired with veneers. “I liked doing the veneers because they weren’t crowns,” Carfaro said. “If you see people with those gray lines around their gum line, they don’t look good, and I wanted something that was going to look more esthetically pleasing.” Since she’s had the work performed, Carfaro said, “People stop me in the street, and grab me in clubs and say, ‘I want your smile.’ For my self esteem, it’s really nice.” How about Julia Roberts’ teeth? Others may not know what the procedures are, but they know how they want to look. Crispin, who also has a private practice, reports that his patients come in waving photographs of celebrities like Julia Roberts and Halle Berry. These superstar smiles don’t always fit in every mouth, but Crispin uses composite imaging equipment originally designed for cosmetic surgeons to help patients see what can be done. “I think what they’re really saying is, ‘I want to look better,'” Crispin explained. “We take that image and we have smile guides to show them (different) shapes.” For the dentists, these types of procedures offer far more job satisfaction than they get from drilling and filling cavities. “If you think about it, when I was a child going to the dentist, the people who came in were in pain,” said Dr. Mike Malone, a dentist in Lafayette, La., and director of the board of the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentists. “(Patients) were there because they had to be there. When I go to work in the morning, my patients are glad to see me. When we’re done, I have patients that are so happy, they’re actually crying. It’s fun and it’s enjoyable.”

The Los Angeles tech corridor, concentrated along the Ventura (101) Freeway from the West San Fernando Valley to eastern Ventura County, is one of the 50 fastest-growing technology regions in the nation. But few people know it, according to a study to be released July 24 by the Los Angeles Regional Technology Alliance. The study paints a picture of a loosely knit community that has grown dramatically in the past decade as business people involved in the defense and aerospace industries formed start-up companies geared at the private sector rather than the government. But the area has done little to promote itself, and has trouble attracting the best workers because many don’t want to live in the region. One key achievement of the study, according to LARTA officials, is that it quantifies for the first time the concentration of high-tech workers employed on the corridor. “We also weren’t aware of the diversity in the area, that there were companies across all technology areas,” said K. Lynn Ferris, program associate at LARTA, who compiled the study. The study, conducted from fall 1999 to June 2000, gives one of the first complete glimpses of the technology corridor. While the tech corridor is generally known as the area paralleling the Ventura (101) Freeway from Woodland Hills to Camarillo, the study looked at a much broader area. Its study area extended east to Glendale and north to the Ronald Reagan (118) Freeway. LARTA found that tech workers account for 12.4 percent of the non-farm workforce in that “corridor” area. That compares with 4.7 percent in all of Los Angeles County and 20.5 percent in Santa Clara County (the Silicon Valley heartland with the highest tech concentration in the state). While L.A.’s tech corridor admittedly has a way to go before rivaling Silicon Valley, it already has five of the 20 fastest-growing tech communities in the state (Chatsworth at No. 5, Camarillo at No. 10, Calabasas at 13, Burbank at 14 and Woodland Hills at 18). And of the 50 fastest-growing companies in Southern California, 19 are located in the tech corridor area. But the LARTA study found the area has no identity beyond its boundaries, as businesses in the area are all too aware. “People hear so much about the Silicon Valley, they think this area is not known for high tech,” said Suresh Nihalani, president of Moorpark-based Accelerated Networks Inc. “As more companies in the area become success stories, the area will gain visibility. We’re already seeing more and more of that with Xylan (a major Calabasas-based tech subsidiary of French telecom giant Alcatel) and Accelerated Networks.” LARTA recommends a more concerted effort on the part of local businesses to promote the region. Suresh agreed that he would like to see more joint efforts by tech companies along the corridor to market the area. Although there are already a number of networking organizations for local businesses, Suresh doesn’t believe they are active enough in creating a recognizable identity for the tech corridor. The biggest complaint from businesses in the area is a lack of access to capital, the study found. Venture funding in the corridor has fluctuated over the last four years. In 1997, area companies received $189 million in venture funding, 28 percent of the total funding given to Southern California companies. But in 1998, that dropped to $126 million, or 16 percent of total funding in the region. In 1999, the area received a whopping $279 million in funding but that was still only 12 percent of the total given in Southern California. The study also found through a survey of company executives that the region has had trouble attracting employees, because of its isolation from other parts of Los Angeles County and the fact that comparatively few workers want to live there. It is especially difficult to lure younger workers from other parts of Los Angeles, such as the Westside or South Bay. “People with that kind of life didn’t seem ready to settle down to Valley life,” Ferris said. The tech corridor’s dramatic growth has also put a burden on area roadways, adding thousands of cars to side streets and to the Ventura Freeway, the only major transit corridor through the area. Businesses complain of a lack of travel options: Burbank Airport has few flights that go beyond the Western states and LAX is a two-hour drive away when traffic is factored in. Some business owners say they favor development of a regional airport in Oxnard or Camarillo to ease travel in and out of the area.

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 the corporate headquarters of Amgen Inc. and Xircom. 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. Conejo Spectrum Two new deals are fast filling the Conejo Spectrum, the $50 million business park in Thousand Oaks. Investment Development Services Inc., the developer of the 100-acre center, has signed Alcatel, a telecommunications and Internet technology company, to a $10 million lease for 200,000 square feet of space in the largest of the remodeled buildings on the site. Alcatel, which inked a 10-year deal, is expanding from its current location in Calabasas. At the same time, a 2.5-acre parcel inside the park was sold to Merex Corp., an aerospace parts manufacturer. The company plans to build a $2.5 million facility on the site. IDS has been renovating three industrial buildings on the parcel, which formerly housed a Northrop Grumman Co. plant. In addition to the buildings, which total 502,000 square feet, the development includes land parcels available for sale and lease. Alcatel and Merex will join Xircom, which earlier signed a deal for a 200,000-square-foot build-to-suit in the center. Ken Ashen at CB Richard Ellis represented Alcatel and Nick Gregg of CB represented Merex in the two latest deals. John DeGrinis and Michael Tingus of Colliers Seeley and IDS represented the property owners, Conejo Spectrum Building Associates LLC and Conejo Spectrum Land Associates LLC. Chatsworth Mega-Deal 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. West Hills Fills Up Countrywide Home Loans signed a 10-year lease for 140,000 square feet of office space at West Hills Corporate Village, bringing the 560,000-square-foot office park to full occupancy. The developers of the property, which formerly housed Hughes Aircraft Co., valued the deal at $34 million. The Countrywide lease follows deals with Boeing, IBM and Computer Associates, which are also occupying the center. Jim Travers and Steve Eyler of Travers Realty represented Countrywide. Mark T. Sullivan and David Kimball of Julien J. Studley Inc. and John Ollen of Insignia/ESG Inc. represented the owners and developers, Regent Properties Inc. and Shamrock Holdings of California. North Hollywood Sale A private investor has purchased an 11,802-square-foot industrial building in North Hollywood for $575,000. The property, at 7349 Coldwater Canyon Blvd., is fully occupied. David Young of NAI Capital Commercial represented the buyer, James Clune. Mike Sheptenko of Told Partners represented the seller Norm London. Staff reporter Shelly Garcia can be reached at (818) 710-2731, ext. 4316, or at [email protected].

martha diaz aszkenazy stays nearly as busy with community affairs as with running her san fernando construction firm, pueblo contracting Written on the invitations for the groundbreaking to Pueblo Contracting Services Inc.’s newest development is a quote from the late African-American leader and activist Malcolm X: “Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.” Neither the author nor the quote are typically attached to enterprises like real estate development. But Pueblo is no typical developer. Martha Diaz Aszkenazy and her husband Severyn have been guided as much by social conscience and civic responsibility as the desire to build a profitable business since they founded the company in 1984. The San Fernando-based company’s projects have included the renovation of the historic Angel’s Flight, a railway that once connected the downtown shopping district with the tony Victorian homes on Bunker Hill, and the remodeling that transformed Bullock’s Wilshire into the law library for Southwestern University. The company has also done a number of housing developments for seniors and other low-income groups. Pueblo’s current project, set to break ground on Aug. 2, is Library Plaza, a $2.7 million development in the city of San Fernando. It will combine a public library and meeting place with an entertainment and business center, including a fitness center, coffee shop, restaurants, barber and florist and a Mail Boxes Etc. Question: How do you decide what kinds of projects your company takes on? Answer: We like to build and develop projects that are good for a community. I have a deep belief in karma, that what you put out there you get back, so therefore Pueblo will never build any prisons. There are certain things we’ll never get involved with. Q: How did you get into the business of restoring historic landmarks? A: It was a business strategy to begin with, because working on landmarks is not an easy skill to acquire, so when you do have it, you want to employ your strengths. But it was also a love for history. I’ve always loved to see these old buildings. To me, when we were doing Angel’s Flight, I felt like I was doing something very important, saving history. So many people’s lives had touched it and I think that maybe some of their auras or whatever might have been left behind. So we see it as a business opportunity and an opportunity to make history. Q: Where did the idea for Library Plaza come from? A: My husband and I are firm believers in education, that education is really the way to get access to opportunity. Without a library, without a beautiful library, we feel you’re really not valuing education. The other thing was that this community is also lacking (facilities for) lifestyle and entertainment. We’ve included a beautiful plaza and a stage so it can be utilized for different occasions. If a school wants to do something, or we want to have a reading, or if they want to celebrate something, whether it’s Dia de Los Muertos or St. Patty’s Day or whatever, it can be utilized for that, because there really aren’t any areas for people to gather at this point. Q: How did you finance the project? A: We purchased the property this is all on. We were able to amass the land and then we went to the city and said, “We think the city deserves a nice library.” We were able to find some interesting financing mechanisms that include federal, local and private funds, and we feel it will be a case study of how to get things done in a community that developers shy away from. So I think it will set a new standard. Q: What is it like to have your husband also be your business partner? A: One of the beauties of this whole thing is that, number one, I found my soul mate and I found him in high school. We’re probably extraordinary in that many couples don’t make it that long. We’ve gone through a lot together, and we’ve grown together. We challenge ourselves all the time. We really do work well together. We’re two different people and I think that because we don’t think the same, we’re able to challenge one another to do a little bit more. We do have lines of distinction, which I think is what keeps our business going and what keeps our marriage together. Q: Who wins when you get into arguments? A: Usually it’s not a matter of winning. I think in a situation like this, you don’t want to win because that can leave long-lasting wounds. Usually we talk it through and we come to the same conclusion at the end or we find a way to make it better. I don’t discount his thoughts and opinions because I respect him as a businessman and I respect him as a developer, and I think he’s got some really good ideas. He looks at me the same way. So we may initially disagree and walk away for a little bit and then we try to come together and make it better. Q: How did you come to start Pueblo? A: Like most people, I didn’t know what I wanted to do (when I graduated from college). And so when an opportunity came up that sounded like a money-making opportunity, I said I’m going to take it. I was for a short period of time a financial planner. But I found out it wasn’t my passion. It wasn’t something I loved, and when you do something you don’t love, you don’t stay long with it. I’ve always been a bit of a risk taker, so I decided I should just have my own business and be my own boss. Q: What was it like for you starting out as a woman, showing up at a work site in what is essentially a man’s world? A: If I was sitting down and speaking to management, it was fine, but when you get lower down, meaning the superintendents, the workers or whatever, the first thing is, they question your ability. Many times they thought I was the decorator. And they’d ask, “Are you licensed?” They wouldn’t ask a man that, but they had no problem asking me. Q: How did that make you feel? A: I didn’t really care. I knew I was in a man’s world. I try not to let things get under my skin. I think you choose your reality, and I didn’t want to come down to (other people’s) reality. If they wanted to question my ability, that was fine. I knew what I wanted to do, and I didn’t have anything to prove to these particular people. Q: How did your family feel about the career you chose, particularly coming from a Latino culture where your path wasn’t the norm? A: My parents were also risk takers. They left their families in Mexico to come for a better opportunity in the United States. So the expectations of my parents were never that I would grow up and get married and have children. My mother always told me the reason why I wanted an education was that I would never be dependent on anybody for a living. She wanted me to be able to take care of myself. Because of our culture, young women don’t usually leave their home until they’re married. I went away to college, which was a big deal in my family. My mother had to convince my father that it would be OK. And we struck a deal that I would go to Loyola Marymount, and I would come home on the weekends. Q: You’ve been instrumental in the new Greater Northeast San Fernando Valley Chamber, created from the merger of the San Fernando and Mission Hills chambers. How do you think that new entity will affect the community? A: I believe it’s going to help the business community to have a voice and to have access to resources, access to legislators, all of those very important things. We also want to get involved in education because you have to have an educated workforce, and we feel there are some really bright kids here that will make wonderful employees somewhere along the line. So we feel that by being involved we can complement the effort that is happening in the Northeast Valley, because I think that business has been absent to a certain extent. Business’ voice has not been heard in this end of the Valley. Q: Do you see the chamber stepping into a redevelopment role now that the Community Redevelopment Agency has postponed the Northeast Valley effort? A: We have not been asked to work on such a project at this point, but we are open to working as a team with other organizations. I don’t think it’s something we would spearhead at this time. If there is an overall plan and someone is leading that, we’re happy to be involved. If not, we’ll continue to do what we do.

Marlene Grossman was counting on Northeast Valley redevelopment to push forward efforts by her group, Pacoima Beautiful, to fix storm drains in the area that often back up, flooding school grounds and streets. But with redevelopment now on hold, Grossman and her group have decided the improvements must still go forward they’ll just have to find another way to pay for them. “We’ve said if redevelopment isn’t the way we get to function, then we’ll find another way,” Grossman said. “We have a lot of other avenues we can pursue.” Grossman is just one example of leaders and agencies in the Northeast Valley searching for new ways to revive the blighted area now that the L.A. City Council has put the kibosh on a Community Redevelopment Agency proposal to create a huge new redevelopment area in their communities. They’re tossing around ideas on everything from business improvement districts in Pacoima and Sun Valley, to strengthening the Community Development Bank, to reaching out to developers. “Even though the CRA project is on hold, by no means does that bring an end to businesses and job creation efforts in the district,” said Councilman Alex Padilla, a strong backer of redevelopment. Using existing programs Padilla said he would like to pump more money into the targeted neighborhood initiative, through which the city has pumped $3.5 million into the community in the past two years for infrastructure improvements. Through that initiative, sidewalks have been added along Laurel Canyon Boulevard in Pacoima. The money also pays for landscaping and building facade improvements, and makes small loans to successful businesses looking to expand. “It’s the first big step and a positive gesture that the city will invest in making the area more business-friendly,” Padilla said. Padilla is also making several other proposals aimed at business, including: – Beefing up existing programs such as the federal empowerment zone and enterprise zone (which give tax credits for certain business expenditures within the area) and the Community Development Bank (a federally backed lending institution giving favorable treatment to businesses in low-income areas). – Forming business improvement districts in Pacoima and Sun Valley. – Doing more outreach with developers looking to build new projects, and businesses trying to relocate, as well as helping businesses in the area expand and grow. The CRA’s proposal was aimed at reviving more than 6,000 acres of decrepit neighborhoods in parts of Pacoima, Sun Valley, Arleta and Panorama City. Padilla and the L.A. City Council voted to put the controversial project on hold last month after the citizen’s project area committee voted to disband because it was hopelessly deadlocked. A number of businesses and residents have spoken out against the proposal because they fear losing their property to the CRA’s power of eminent domain. The area, though, is still in desperate need of help. At the Pacoima-based group, Meeting Each Need with Dignity, or MEND, director Marianne Haver Hill and volunteers help about 20,000 people a month to fulfill basic needs like food and clothing. Many of the people they serve don’t speak English, and even getting them to the free language classes offered by MEND and other groups is a challenge. “Their lives are so overwhelming, and just trying to get by is very stressful,” Hill said. “Once you hit bottom, it takes a lot of time to move up.” Attracting more jobs Hill said many of the biggest problems faced by people she serves can be solved in other ways than just redevelopment. She said they need basics like affordable housing, jobs and child care. Martha Diaz Aszkenazy, chairwoman of the Greater Northeast Valley Chamber of Commerce and owner of San Fernando-based Pueblo Construction, said the chamber is looking for ways to help attract manufacturers and higher-paying jobs to the area, the most important ingredient, they believe, to revitalization. Business leaders say they hope to start reviving the area piece by piece and are looking at some simple solutions like adding sign ordinances to clean up business districts. “We need to take a couple blocks at a time,” Aszkenazy said. “We need to take it bite-size. We know we can’t do all of the Northeast Valley at once.” Aszkenazy said the chamber will pursue more public-private partnerships to work through the problems. The chamber is working with Cal State Northridge to form focus groups that would determine how businesses and the university could better work together. “What really needs to happen is, business and government need to come together and come up with solutions,” Aszkenazy said. Padilla said he is hoping for the same thing. “We need a closer collaboration with the Economic Alliance (of the San Fernando Valley, a local business organization), with the Chamber of Commerce,” Padilla said. “We need the sharing of experiences of what works and what doesn’t work.” Almost everyone agrees the area needs to be better promoted to lure in businesses and developers. “For the most part, people are not familiar with the Northeast Valley,” Padilla said. “They have an impression of L.A. as a market and they’re familiar with downtown and the coastal areas. They’re somewhat familiar with the Valley.”

Camarillo-based Biosource International, a maker of medical supplies for the biomedical industry, has been quietly plugging along for the last decade attracting little attention from the outside world. But with the recent announcement that scientists have completed a map of the human genome, the company has been attracting investor and media interest, reflected in a major stock run-up The share price hit $25 on June 30 following news of the genome mapping. It has since dropped down to the $20 range, still significantly higher than the $3 to $5 range where it traded from Sept. 1999 to February 2000. “Certainly, there’s no question that with the attention and work going into the genome research, many doors open up for humanity, not just us,” said President and CEO James Chamberlain. “We’re just an early beneficiary.” BioSource’s products include test kits, strands of DNA and proteins used by biotechnology researchers as they try to make sense of what genes do. With the mapping of the genetic sequence, biotechnology research into genes is expected to step up good news for a company like BioSource. Because of its position in the market as a supplier to researchers, the company was one of the first in the biotech industry to see a direct link between the announcement that the genome had been mapped and a run-up in its stock price. After all, it doesn’t have to bring new drugs to market based on the research, it just has to provide supplies to the researchers. Analysts have helped. On June 14, Paul Knight, an analyst with Thomas Weisel, recommended BioSource as one of three key beneficiaries of genome research. Knight told TheStreet.com that he was upbeat about the company because it is revenue-driven, has established its products and has distribution networks in place. Knight rated the stock a strong buy after initiating coverage in June. In his report, he set a price target of $19.25 per share over the next 12 months. Both analysts who cover the stock rate it a strong buy, according to Zacks Investment Research. “(The stock is) doing very well,” said Chamberlain. “We beat both expectations by a wide margin and the third quarter is looking quite strong.” BioSource reported net income for the second quarter ended June 30 of $382,500 (5 cents a share), compared with $1 million (14 cents) in the like year-earlier period. Revenue was $8.4 million vs. $7.6 million. Chamberlain said the drop in net income was due to a one-time equity underwriting expense. Earlier this year, the company announced that Genstar Capital invested $19 million for an equity stake in BioSource. The company will use the money to fund acquisitions and to reduce its debt. In the last five years, the company has acquired five of its smaller competitors, a growth strategy that Chamberlain plans to continue. The company attributes increases in sales for the second quarter to a boom in genetic research. Its five product categories saw growth of 14 percent overall in sales during the quarter, Chamberlain said. The fastest-growing sector of BioSource’s business is its custom proteins used in DNA research, which now account for a little more than 10 percent of overall revenues. But by far the company’s biggest product line is its test kits, which account for 50 percent of sales. Chamberlain said he believes the stock is still somewhat undervalued compared to other companies in its industry. “When you look at the cash flow, we’re trading at very low multiples compared to our competitors,” he said. “Many have P-E ratios of 150 to 500. Ours is 75.” The biomedical product market is expected to grow 15 percent this year over 1999. The company, which now has 250 employees, is hoping to benefit from that expansion. In the next month, the company will move into a bigger facility in Camarillo, which will allow it to boost production. It has also opened a sales office in the United Kingdom, which is the third largest market in the world for BioSource products, Chamberlain said. Ahmed Enany, executive director of the Southern California Biomedical Council, said while BioSource is known within the greater market, it has not yet staked out a dominant position in any segment. “What they are trying to do is position themselves to take advantage of genomics and the whole hoopla around it,” Enany said. “There are a lot of people offering diagnostic kits. Companies have to position themselves within a niche in the market to be known.”