schatz/dy/34″/mike1st/mark2nd By DOUGLAS YOUNG Staff Reporter At age 77, Carl Schatz is one of the San Fernando Valley’s most seasoned bankers. His banking career in the Valley dates back to 1950, when Schatz transferred from a Bank of America branch in the L.A. basin to work at BofA’s Tarzana office. He left BofA in the mid-1950s to work as one of the founding staff at Bank of Encino. After that bank was sold in 1957, Schatz left to help set up Independence Bank, which was also sold. He retired briefly in 1984, before returning to set up a reincarnation of Bank of Encino in 1986, which was subsequently sold and merged into Western Bank in 1995. Not one to call it quits, however, Schatz is now in the process of setting up a third incarnation of the Bank of Encino. The planned new bank has already been chartered by the State of California and is currently raising capital for a grand opening this summer. Question: What are your views on consolidation in the banking industry? Answer: I think it’s for the birds. I’ve never been the CEO of a $2 billion, $20 billion or $100 billion bank, so it’s hard for me to know what their plans are. I went to a meeting several months ago where someone from Wells Fargo spoke, and it seems their real objective is to eliminate as many people as possible and eliminate brick and mortar (branches) and be more computerized than personal. Q: Chatsworth-based Great Western Bank for several months has been the subject of a fierce takeover battle. Will the loss of Great Western as an independent institution represent a loss for the San Fernando Valley? A: Who the hell cares. Nobody cares. We couldn’t care less. Q: Have the attitudes of government officials towards banking consolidation and deregulation changed much in recent years? A: I attended a meeting of the FDIC with 40 or 50 other California bankers about five or six years ago. The chairman was very blunt when he told us, “We would like to see the total number of banks in the U.S. reduced to 150.” At that time we had about 14,000 banks in the U.S. Now I think we’re down to less than 9,000. The current regime is totally different. They’re so receptive to new banks. I think it could be a backlash (to the rapid rate of consolidation). I think they realize the small banks in the nation are the backbone that supports small business. Maybe they realized, “This is the right thing to be doing.” Q: What do you think of the computerization trend in banking? A: I don’t like it because I don’t know how to work a computer. But young people get so indoctrinated into computers these days. I have a daughter who’s 25, and she barely ever goes into a branch. There are certain banks now where you get charged just to talk with a teller. I don’t think there’s any question we’re getting into a checkless society. It’s the times. I’m from the old school, where I like to see people coming into the bank. I used to have to hire off-duty police officers to direct traffic (inside the branch office) in Encino in the 1950s. Q: But surely not having to wait in long lines as a result of computerization can’t be bad? A: I don’t think it’s bad. You just have to be careful. You can’t lose your personality. If everyone works on a computer, you don’t have a personality anymore. Q: How important is it for banks to have personalities in this day and age? A: I don’t know if it’s important to have a personality when you’re in the big stuff. But if you’re a small mom-and-pop shop that’s growing, you’d better darn well have a personality. Q: What will you do at the new Bank of Encino to ensure you have a distinct personality? A: We’ll have to have some kind of a niche. One of the most important niches we’ll have will be our courier service. We’ll have “X” number of customers that will do their deposit business through courier service to make it convenient for them. We’ll also do other things. For example, if a person banks with us and their factory is in Torrance, you can’t give them (payroll) checks from a bank in the San Fernando Valley (because those checks may take several days to clear for employees). So to get around that problem, we may have that customer, for example, establish a payroll account with one of the major banks. Then once a week we could hand carry a cashier’s check over for their payroll. We believe that little extra services if we go out and hustle will allow us to establish ourselves. Q: What was the Valley like when you first came out here? How many bank branches were there? A: There were very few. Even in 1950, when I first came out to work in the Valley, there was only one bank from Reseda Boulevard to Ventura (County), and that was a BofA. The next bank was a Security First National (Security Pacific), and that was at Sepulveda and Ventura (boulevards). There were no banks in between. Then, if you went farther into Sherman Oaks, there was a BofA in Sherman Oaks. There was also another Bank of America in Studio City. Q: What was banking like in California back then? A: It was great. In the banking business, you had to have all the answers for everything. It certainly isn’t like today. You go into a bank today, and chances are you can’t even see the manager. And if you do talk to the manager, he doesn’t know what the hell you’re talking about because 90 percent of managers are just salesmen now. In the olden days, banks put their employees on training programs. As long as I was with BofA, I was on a training program of some sort. They all believed in investing in their employees. Q: How did the first Bank of Encino come about? A: In Encino, there was a gentleman by the name of Dick Powers. He was the president of the chamber of commerce, but he was also a corporate officer at MGM. The chamber wanted a bank in Encino, and at that time Encino was loaded with top-notch actors Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Mary Astor, Al Jolson, John Wayne (who wanted to have a bank branch close to where they lived). Q: What do you think of your decision to leave BofA for the community banking industry? A: I think it was a good one, because if I were still at Bank of America, first of all, they probably would have forced me into retirement 20 years ago. Q: Have you ever considered retirement? A: I did retire on Dec. 31, 1984. Q: What happened? A: I was absolutely depressed and bored. I mean, how much golf can a guy play? I was sitting around the house, nothing to do, watching TV. I became absolutely depressed. You know, when you’ve been really active in your profession, no matter what it is, and suddenly you’re out, you’re out of the mainstream. You’re out. You’re nobody. Nobody needs you anymore. That’s the way I felt. I felt like I wasn’t needed. So one day another banker friend and I went to lunch, and he said, “Why don’t you start another bank?” In the meantime, a lot of my customers had been calling me, and they weren’t happy. And so I got together with a group of four or five people and said, “Here’s what we have to do.” And that’s how the Bank of Encino got started again.

northridge/w/art/20 inches/1stjc/mark2nd By JULIE SABLE Staff Reporter Still struggling to rebound more than three years after the Jan. 17, 1994 earthquake, officials at the Northridge Fashion Center are hoping that a new 10-screen multiplex cinema will bring more shoppers to the northwest Valley’s biggest mall. Mall officials acknowledge that sales and mall traffic are still below 1993 levels, although they will not disclose actual sales revenues. “Traffic isn’t quite as good and sales per square foot are a little below the 1993 numbers,” said Fashion Center general manager Lloyd Miller. “I wouldn’t say that we are progressing at a snail’s pace, but it’s never fast enough.” Part of the reason may be that the mall, owned by Dallas-based MEPC American Companies, does not have a multiplex cinema. Theaters, and not department stores, are now considered the most important anchors for retail malls. “Nationwide, there is a trend toward shopping centers becoming overall entertainment venues, Miller said. “I think people overall do not have a lot time these days,” he added, “and we all are looking for time to enjoy ourselves and get some errands done at the same time. Now we’re seeing a trend back to the old shopping center adage of one-stop shopping.” Until the 1994 quake, the mall had a three-screen multiplex operated by General Cinemas Theaters of California. The mall was reopened in August 1995, but without theaters. Miller said the mall owners and General Cinema could not reach agreement on the size and scope of the replacement theaters. This spring, mall officials reached agreement with Pacific Theaters Corp. to develop a 10-screen, 2,800-seat movie cinema. Miller said Pacific Theaters will begin construction of the theater later this summer with a targeted opening date of spring, 1998. The theater will go into the three-story Robinsons-May Home Store on the north end of the center, which is slated to be closed this month and consolidated with the Robinsons-May apparel store on the south end of the center. A bookstore and three or four theme restaurants will also be added to the area around the theater, Miller said. In addition to Robinsons-May, the Fashion Center is anchored by a Sears, a Macys and a J.C. Penney. There are 150 specialty stores, and the mall has an occupancy rate of 85 percent not counting the vacant Broadway Department Store, which will be part of the new entertainment area. Mall owners used the quake rebuilding process to update the facility, which opened in the early 1970s. “The center looks completely different now from before the quake,” said Annette Bethers, the center’s marketing director. Skylights, colorful signage, black wire mesh benches and palm trees all help to brighten the center which had the dark, solid look that was typical of malls built in the early 1970s, she said. A 6,000-square-foot food court was added on the mall’s second level, another development that was part of the remodeling plans but suddenly became a necessity as the owners of the mall scrambled to reopen. There are two parking structures with 7,600 spaces but mall officials would like to see those parking structures full on a more frequent basis. “The traffic count averages between 800,000 and 900,000 shoppers each month,” Bethers said. That is below pre-quake levels, but actual counts were not taken before the quake. One reason shoppers may not have come back is because they have developed loyalties to other area shopping centers, such as The Promenade in Woodland Hills or Topanga Plaza in Canoga Park, said Nancy Williams, a vice president at Grubb & Ellis Co. in Sherman Oaks. “When the mall went down, shopping patterns changed slightly for the immediate trade area so some of the existing sales leaked over to other retail areas that have more activity and vibrancy like Woodland Hills,” Williams said. “Centers today are calling for a mix, a combination of entertainment and retail,” Williams said. Without this component added to the Fashion Center, Williams said the mall risks remaining “old-fashioned.” But if the mall has had its share of struggles, it nonetheless has loyal customers who are happy to see it back in business. “It’s much nicer here than anywhere else,” said Marcus Cisneros of Pacoima, who was shopping at the men’s store Structure last week. Cisneros shopped at the Panorama and Topanga malls when the Fashion Center was closed, but said they don’t compare aesthetically. “I like to sit on the benches and listen to the water fountains,” he said. “Even though you’re in a mall, it’s just very comfortable.”

valleyedit///lacter///june/mike1st/jc2nd Hed — Adieu, Great Western The San Fernando Valley is about to lose one of its largest companies. But it’s not the end of the world just a reflection of how this business community is evolving. For months, Chatsworth-based Great Western Financial Corp. has been the target of an intense takeover battle, pitting two suitors: Irwindale-based H.F. Ahmanson & Co., parent company of Home Savings, and Seattle-based Washington Mutual Inc. A shareholders vote is scheduled for June 13. As of this writing, the betting is on Washington Mutual, but no matter which side prevails, Great Western is about to be gobbled up and with it, the company’s 4,473 Valley workers. Layoffs clearly are a possibility; dislocations all but assured. In recent years, the Valley has lost a few large, nationally known companies to mergers or relocations Lockheed being about the most obvious, recent example. But unlike downtown L.A., which has lost First Interstate, Unocal and Carter Hawley Hale in just the last few years, the Valley never has been a stronghold for Fortune 500 companies. Yes, there is Burbank-based Walt Disney Co., with 1996 revenues of $18.7 billion. But as is seen in our list of Valley public companies (page 17), the numbers drop off sharply. In the second position is WellPoint Health Networks Inc. ($4.7 billion), followed by Dole Food Co. Inc. ($3.8 billion). Even those numbers are deceiving. WellPoint, along with other major Valley-based HMOs, threaten to leave town because L.A. taxes are too high; and most of Dole’s operations are outside the Valley (only 200 Valley employees out of a total work force of 46,000). The point is that while the Valley remains a major business center for Southern California, it will never be the center of mega-corporations as with New York and Chicago. Nor should that kind of status be sought after it’s not the Valley’s strength. What this community does best is provide an environment for success: An educated labor pool, ample space for offices and manufacturing, a respected state university, and an accessible place to do business. It’s an area that’s ideal for entrepreneurs and small- to medium-sized businesses not multinational behemoths. No. 25 on this month’s list is On Assignment Inc., a fast-growing temp agency for scientific professionals, with revenues of $88.2 million. It’s a perfect Valley success story. So is Natrol Inc., a privately held manufacturer and distributor of dietary supplements that’s profiled in this month’s issue (page 8). Starting in 1981 as a one-person shop and sales of $200,000, Natrol now has 120 employees and 1996 sales of about $40 million. It will be too bad to see the dissolving of Great Western. But more important to the Valley’s business lifeblood are the On Assignments and Natrols. For us, that’s where the action is and will continue to be.

BAGEL/handout art tk/22inches/1stjc/mark2nd By RUSSELL JACKSON Contributing Reporter Booming Manhattan Bagel Co. Inc. has leased space for a new West Coast manufacturing facility in San Fernando and will move its western regional administrative offices to the same site. And in a carefully orchestrated collaboration between city officials and state employment agencies, the new plant will be staffed in part by residents thrown out of work by the impending closure of a nearby Price-Pfister factory. The new bagel facility, which will be located at 1145 Arroyo Ave. in an industrial neighborhood of San Fernando, will devote about 21,500 square feet to bagel dough and cheese spread manufacturing. The rest of the space will be used for administrative offices that will relocate from Canoga Park. The Eatontown, N.J.-based Manhattan Bagel plans to make about $4.5 million in capital improvements to the site. Construction of the production facilities will be two-tiered, according to company president and chief operating officer Jason Gennusa. Sometime this fall, the plant will be ready to start producing about 800 dozen bagels an hour, he said. Next spring, equipment will be instealled to bring the San Fernando site up to speed with the company’s “highly automated, state-of-the art” facility in Eatontown, he added. When that’s done, the plant will produce about 2,000 dozen bagels an hour. The San Fernando facility will service Manhattan Bagel outlets in California, Las Vegas, Arizona, West Texas and the rest of the Southwest. The company ships pre-formed, frozen dough to each store, which then boils, seasons and bakes it. The idea of locating the plant in San Fernando first came up when Manhattan Bagel informed California’s Trade and Commerce Agency that it intended to open a plant on the West Coast, said Mayor Raul Godinez. The agency contacted city officials, he said, to notify them that “someone is interested in leasing a large space” and to “ask if we wanted to make a pitch for it.” As it happened, the state’s Employee Training Panel had started working with Price-Pfister about placing its laid off employees. An ETP liaison secured a list of terminated employees, then contacted San Fernando and Manhattan Bagel officials about rehiring them at the new facility. The ETP liaison is now contacting those employees about opportunities at the bagel factory, said Saul Gomez, San Fernando’s assistant to the city administrator. The plant expects to employ 15 to 20 of those workers, Godinez said, at wages in the $25,000 to $30,000 a year range. In addition, about 45 employees will relocate from a much smaller production facility the company runs in North Hills, just six miles away, said Daniel Rush, general manager of Manhattan Bagel’s West Coast division. Manhattan Bagel inherited the plant when it acquired I & Joy, another bagel company, a couple years ago as a way to enter the West Coast market. The move should be complete by late summer, Rush said. Sealing the deal for the San Fernando site was an offer by Southern California Edison to provide the plant with lower “economic development” rates. And the ETP, Godinez said, “offered to help with the transition” for employees moving from the Price-Pfister plant to the Manhattan Bagel operation, including “providing training for the first six months.” San Fernando “pushed the community’s benefits, but didn’t make any concessions” to get the lease, Godinez said. Gomez isn’t surprised the site was pursued. “We’re a hub here,” Gomez explains, “We’re near Antelope Valley, the San Gabriel Valley and other population centers. So we have a lot of industries interested in locating here.” San Fernando has superb freeway access, Godinez noted, with the 210, 118, 405 and 5 freeways all nearby. Manhattan Bagel executives also liked the fact the San Fernando has its own police department, he said, and boasts a 911 response time of less than two minutes. “It’s a very secure city,” he said. In addition, San Fernando levies no utility tax on business. “You don’t have the same hurdles to starting an operation like that that you would in L.A.,” he said. Luck and timing played a part as well, according to Rush. Manhattan Bagel had been looking for a site for nine months, he said, but ruled out most prospects because they weren’t the right size or shape for its manufacturing needs. “At the last minute,” he said, the San Fernando facility offered those qualities just a short drive from the North Hills plant. Manhattan Bagel franchises, licenses or operates about 330 stores in 18 states, Washington, D.C., and Canada, including almost 40 in California, according to Gennusa. Another 100 or so outlets are under development. In addition to the main Eatontown facility, dough manufacturing plants are located in Greenville, S.C., and Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The main cheese spread manufacturing operation is also based in Eatontown.

gmplant6-2hm23 inches/mike1st/mark2nd By HILDY MEDINA Staff Reporter For decades, manufacturing dollars flowing from the General Motors plant in Van Nuys served as the economic lifeblood of the northeast San Fernando Valley. Now the flow, which has been cut off since the plant was closed in 1992, may be about to begin again. That prospect arises from talks being held between the City of Los Angeles and Marvin Engineering Co. Inc. to bring nearly 800 high-pay aerospace workers to the former GM plant site. Consolidating Marvin Engineering’s workers from the company’s four existing plants into one, to-be-developed facility at the GM site would go a long way towards revitalizing a community that lost more than 2,500 high-paying manufacturing jobs in 1992. “This is huge economic news,” said John Rooney, president of the Valley Economic Development Center. “It would really help revitalize the whole Valley area. When GM shut down it had a very serious impact on the ecomony.” The deal being negotiated by Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon’s office and the developer, Voit Cos. would immediately fill the entire 30-acre industrial section of the big GM redevelopment project in one fell swoop. “I think it’s an excellent opportunity for the community of Van Nuys to rebuild itself,” said John Slifko, technical advisor to U.S. Rep. Howard Berman, D-Panorama City, in whose congressional district the GM plant site is located. “(Closure of the GM plant) was a blow to the Valley. GM was an engine for the Valley through most of the post-war period. It’s exciting to see that we’re making our way back.” Jerry Friedman, executive vice president and co-owner of Marvin Engineering, said his company was recently approached by L.A. city officials who had learned about the firm’s need for extra space and desire to consolidate into one location. Marvin Engineering, primarily a defense contractor with revenues last year of $120 million, currently has plants in Inglewood, West Los Angeles and Irvine. Its fourth plant, a subsidiary in Valencia which operates under the name Aerospace Dynamics International, deals mostly in designing and manufacturing commercial airline parts. “We’ve talked to Richard (Alarcon) and his office, and in fact, we’re going to have another meeting,” said Friedman. “They’re trying to get us to take over the whole (GM industrial) facility.” The purpose of the meeting, set for a yet-to-be-determined date this week, is to discuss various incentives that may be offered, said Alarcon. The councilman described Marvin Engineering as exactly the kind of company the city is looking for. “It could be a tremendous opportunity,” said Alarcon. “(Marvin Engineering) has high-paying jobs, highly skilled employees and tremendous upward mobility.” But the cost of consolidating four plants is extremely high, said Friedman, and the only way the company would agree to the deal is if the city can show how the move could be made affordable. “Clearly, I would love to see a fruitful negotiation, but it’s not easy,” said Alarcon. “One of the biggest difficulties is its size. It’s not easy for the company to move hundreds of thousands of pounds of equipment.” Robert Lumley, a vice president at Voit, who is also involved in the negotiations, characterized the discussions as still in the infancy stage. He added that the city is busy working on its incentive package for the aerospace firm. “Because of the high-paying jobs it will bring to the community, (Marvin Engineering) would like to have some subsidy,” said Lumley. “Whether it (the package) is going to be acceptable to Marvin, I don’t want to get excited yet.” Meanwhile, Friedman, whose company has been courted by other areas as well, including Michigan, Florida and Kansas, said he is very interested in the Van Nuys site because of its location within a revitalization zone. “It’s a beautiful site in a great area,” said Friedman. “But they have to get us to the point where we could see how it would make sense to us in a business way It has to be good for L.A. and it has to be good for us.” To lure companies to revitalization zones, the city will offer a range of incentives. For example, sewer charges could be eliminated and job training programs may be provided for new employees. In some instances, the city will pay the company for every new employee hired. Another available inducement is that industrial development bonds could be issued to finance plant construction. That bond program enables the city to issue bonds and funnel the proceeds through in the form of a government-secured construction loan with a below-market interest rate. Alarcon said seven companies, mostly from the high-tech industry, have expressed interest in moving to the GM plant site, but Marvin Engineering is the only company looking to occupy the entire site. Last year, Selleck Development Group and Voit jointly purchased about 68 acres of the former General Motors site, which has stood vacant since 1992. The developers set aside about 35 acres for retail use, 30 acres for industrial purposes and the remainder was donated to the city, most likely for a police substation. Retail tenants that have agreed to move to the 35-acre retail portion of the project site include Home Depot and Cineamerica Theaters L.P., which plans to build a 14-to-20-screen Mann’s Theatres cineplex. As for the industrial portion of the site, earlier plans spearheaded by Berman envisioned a state-of-the-art biomedical “incubator” park to house up to 30 small companies. Those plans had been gaining widespread support among business, academic and government leaders. But the idea eventually grew stale because of inadequate response from the biomed community. “Anybody could come up with a great scheme, it boils down to investment. Who’s going to make that investment?” said one high-ranking L.A. city official who asked not to be named. “If we had (adequate interest and financing for) all the choices, we would consider them. We haven’t seen that (from the biomed community).”

dreamworks/16″/wphoto 1stjc/mark2nd By DAN TURNER and BRAD BERTON Staff Reporters DreamWorks SKG is scheduled to complete the first structure at its Glendale animation campus this month, under a revised development plan that eliminates a signature campanile-style tower and slightly increases the amount of office space. And, with development of the studio’s Playa Vista campus still mired down, the studio has leased a 124,518-square-foot office/industrial facility in Chatsworth to house general offices, production and storage operations, DreamWorks leased the building at 21350 Lassen St. for five years for an estimated $3.5 million to $4 million, according to San Fernando Valley real estate sources. The new entertainment powerhouse co-founded by Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen currently maintains its headquarters in the Universal City district, and houses operations at various locations in the Valley and other parts of the Los Angeles area. Alterations in the architectural plans for the Glendale animation complex sparked speculation last month that the studio was planning to incorporate additional functions besides animation there. The changes to the Glendale site include the elimination of a bell tower atop one building, the addition of 9,000 square feet of office space, the shifting of building positions, the exchange of olive trees for cypress and a new color scheme. But DreamWorks officials say the changes are being driven by cost and design considerations and not an expanded role for the animation campus. Groundbreaking on DreamWorks main studio in Playa Vista has been delayed nearly a year because of financing problems by Playa Vista’s lead developer, Maguire Thomas Partners. Even so, there are no plans to put additional administrative or studio functions on the Glendale campus, said DreamWorks operations chief David Mannix. “Most of the design changes have been for architectural reasons or cost factors,” Mannix said. “It’s still totally an animation campus. The rest of the company will hopefully move to Playa Vista, once those plans get done.” The first structure at the Glendale complex, a parking garage, will be finished June 23, and the first office building is scheduled for completion Dec. 10. The entire first phase of the project, which includes five buildings encompassing 320,000 square feet of office space, is slated to be finished by April 1998. No start date has been set for the second phase, which calls for two more buildings that would add a maximum of 175,000 additional square feet. Despite the elimination of the bell tower to cut costs, Glendale Development Director Jeanne Armstrong said it remains a first-class project. “If I showed you a picture of the original project that was approved by the city and then showed you a picture of the new project, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference,” she said. Animation may be the most critical segment of DreamWorks, the fledgling entertainment studio created in 1994 by director Steven Spielberg, former Walt Disney Co. executive Jeffrey Katzenberg and music mogul David Geffen. Katzenberg, who would probably be the chief executive officer of DreamWorks if the company had titles, helped build Disney’s animation division into a worldwide powerhouse and developed such hits as “The Lion King” and “Aladdin” while under his former employer. DreamWorks is relying on a similar success record from its own animation division in order to support its other ventures. None of the productions from its television and feature animation divisions (now housed in Encino and Burbank, respectively) have yet appeared; in the works are two TV series that will appear in January 1998 and four animated feature films, the first of which, “Prince of Egypt,” is scheduled to debut in November 1998. As for the Playa Vista project, intended to house the rest of DreamWorks (which includes divisions producing music, movies, TV shows and CD-ROMs currently located in Universal City, Brentwood and Beverly Hills), it came a step closer to becoming a reality last month. Squabbles among developer Rob Maguire, DreamWorks, a banking group holding some $150 million in principal debt on the property and prospective financial partners have delayed for months what is being called the first major new studio in Los Angeles in more than 50 years. But late last month, Morgan Stanley Group and Goldman Sachs & Co. bought 83 percent of the $150 million mortgage from Chase Manhattan Bank effectively seizing control of the property from the Maguire group if a settlement on his loan payments cannot be reached by mid-July. DreamWorks officials are said to be anxious to work the property’s new owners to finally get the project off the ground. The space being acquired in Chatsworth was formerly occupied by the Sanyo Fisher Co. consumer electronics group’s headquarters. Sanyo relocated about two months ago to another site within Chatsworth. Matthew Miller and Jerry Porter of Brentwood-based Metrospace Corp. negotiated the five-year, approximately $3.7 million lease transaction on DreamWorks’ behalf, while Tim Foutz and Bill Napier of Encino’s Capital Commercial Real Estate represented the property owner, SBD Group.

sprint/SFVjune/bb inches Long-distance carrier Sprint Communications Co. L.P. has purchased a parcel in the new Flower Street Business Park in Burbank, and will have a customized 50,000-square-foot industrial facility developed on the site. Sprint will house a switching station within the $3 million facility to be located at 100 Flower St., which should be ready for occupancy in the summer of 1998. Flower Street Business Park developer Anses Joseph Co., headquartered in Tarzana, will develop the facility on a fee basis for Sprint. Demand from the media-entertainment field in particular has reduced vacancies at Burbank-area commercial buildings to minuscule levels, and most of the area’s available industrial facilities have also been spoken for. Grubb & Ellis’ Jim Linn and Michael Davin, the Flower Street park’s exclusive marketing agents, noted that seven buildings are under construction at the development, two of which are already leased and one of which has been pre-sold. The developer has decided to offer the other buildings only for lease. David Abell of Arledge/Power Real Estate Group in Dallas represented Sprint in the land acquisition/build-to-suit negotiations. –30–

adlist/13″/mike1st/mark2nd By DAN TURNER Wilshire Boulevard has become the local equivalent of Madison Avenue, with nearly every nationally recognized advertising agency concentrated on or near the boulevard. As a result, few people recognize that the San Fernando Valley has an advertising industry. As this month’s List shows, it does but don’t expect to see the likes of TBWA Chiat/Day Inc. or BBDO West in the vicinity of Ventura Boulevard. Valley ad agencies tend to specialize in the lower-profile niches of the marketing business direct response, direct mail, yellow pages and graphic arts. Still, there are a few Valley agencies that make enough in annual billings to qualify among the biggest agencies in L.A. County. Inter/Media Advertising, for example, took in $72.5 million in gross billings in 1996 to qualify as the No. 1 advertising agency in the San Fernando Valley. Encino-based Inter/Media specializes in producing and buying media time for short-form infomercials. The spots usually run five minutes or less and can be found on TV and radio; the agency does only a small amount of print work. Founded in 1974 by Chief Executive Sydney Yallen, Inter/Media also has offices in Washington, D.C. and Hawaii. The No. 2 agency is TMP Worldwide, an international agency specializing in yellow pages, recruitment and Internet advertising. Its Valley offices in North Hollywood and Westlake Village together account for about $43 million in gross billings, and handle only yellow pages ads. The other agency of substantial size in the Valley is Grey Direct West, an independent subsidiary of big international ad agency Grey Inc. whose better-known L.A. office can be found on Wilshire. Grey Direct in Burbank is another electronic marketing firm, making mostly 60-second short-form infomercials (short-form infomercials differ from a regular TV commercials in that they present the viewer with an “800” number so products can be ordered over the telephone). Grey only has one other domestic office for its direct response division, located in New York. Chris LaBonge, executive vice present of Grey Direct, says he wouldn’t trade his headquarters in the Media District for offices in the more-popular Wilshire or Westside areas. “I wouldn’t want to be on Wilshire Boulevard. I don’t think it’s very attractive anymore,” LaBonge says. Many Valley agencies concentrate on entertainment marketing, taking advantage of their close proximity to such movie studios as Walt Disney Co., Warner Bros. and DreamWorks SKG. No. 4-ranked Jerry Johnson & Associates does most of its work on movie posters and other studio ads, for example. Other facets of the Valley’s entertainment industry also express themselves in the advertising community. As the center of the adult film industry, perhaps it’s no surprise that one Valley agency Woodland Hills-based Pacific Marketing (No. 9 on the List) specializes in advertisements for adult entertainment. Pacific Marketing officials declined to reveal the names of the firm’s clients.

VALLEY/digestADD/1stjc March sales of existing homes in the San Fernando Valley were up 25 percent over the like period a year ago, and at their highest point in eight years, according to the San Fernando Valley Association of Realtors. “Sales are still heavily concentrated in entry level price ranges, but activity is building in all categories,” said the association’s president Mel Wilson. March single-family home sales rose 33.8 percent from the month before, with 882 sales completed. Home resale prices rose a modest 1.6 percent from 1996, and were 3.2 percent higher than in February, the association found. The median resale price of a single-family home in March was $160,000. “Even if the inventory remains at current low levels, I do not expect to see prices rise quickly,” Wilson said.

d.taub/secession/1stjc/mark2nd An Assembly bill to remove the Los Angeles City Council’s right to veto a citywide vote on San Fernando Valley secession moved a step closer to approval late last month. Co-sponsored by Assembly members Tom McClintock, R-Granada Hills, and Robert Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, Assembly Bill 62 would eliminate the ability by cities to overpower a community’s secession effort an authority cities were given in 1977 following an earlier Valley secession effort. AB 62 passed the Assembly last month on a 74-1 vote, with Assemblyman Roderick Wright, D-Los Angeles, casting the one dissenting vote. The bill is an outgrowth of last year’s failed effort by former Granada Hills Assemblywoman Paula L. Boland to allow the Valley to decide on its own whether to secede from Los Angeles. The bill was reintroduced unchanged by McClintock, Boland’s successor, a day after he was sworn into office, but later was revised to allow for a citywide vote. Meanwhile, a separate secession bill by state Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer, D-Hayward, recently passed through the Senate Rules Committee on a 4-1 vote, but likely won’t be voted on by the full Senate until at least early June. Lockyer’s bill is similar to the McClintock-Hertzberg bill, but also calls for the state to spend $1.2 million to fund two commissions one to study the issues of community secession on a statewide level, and one to study San Fernando Valley secession. “Our bill is really about the right to self determination, and his bill is really about secession,” said Scott Wilk, McClintock’s chief of staff. Daniel Taub