Big refinance An affiliate of local development firm Johnston Group has secured a $25 million refinance mortgage from Nomura Asset Capital Corp.’s real estate lending division for the 320,000-square-foot Malibu Canyon Business Park and Corporate Center in Calabasas. Johnston completed the business park in two phases in 1986 and 1990. Tenants include a variety of high-tech, insurance, health care and other service operations. The Nomura loan carries a 15-year term and a 30-year amortization schedule. Chase Securities Inc. and Dwyer-Curlett Inc. assisted in negotiating the transaction which closed in just three weeks.

Ezralow/SFVFeb/24 inches1stjc BRAD BERTON Staff Reporter Developer Marshall Ezralow has figured out a way to rent apartments in parts of the Valley that still face double-digit vacancy rates from the Northridge earthquake. Just drop the price. Ezralow says the units are renting for $100 to $150 less than comparable apartments nearby. His price structure is part of the Los Angeles Redevelopment Corp., a joint effort of Ezralow and St. Louis-based redeveloper McCormick Baron & Associates to purchase and renovate Valley apartment communities damaged in the January 1994 Northridge earthquake. The developers earn key income tax credits by reserving all 500 of the units built or under construction for low- to moderate-income residents. The below-market rent levels are set with participation of the City of Los Angeles’ Housing Department, and the federal government helps residents pay their rents based on family income levels. Residents must meet specified income requirements to qualify. The programs allow L.A. Redevelopment to offer one-bedroom units for about $520 monthly, two-bedrooms for about $625 and three-bedroom apartments for about $715. “We are able to deliver new apartments, which are relatively luxurious compared to the competition, at rents that typically run $100 to $150 below nearby ‘market-rate’ apartments,” Ezralow said. The new and renovated units include appliances and features not typically offered in competing market-rate developments. The partners initially expected to utilize government programs aimed at creating projects combining both “market-rate” units and “below-market” apartments reserved for lower-income renters, Ezralow said. But demand for the affordable units has been overwhelming, the developer added. L.A. Redevelopment’s projects are located in some of the Valley communities hit particularly hard by the Northridge earthquake primarily Northridge, Reseda and Canoga Park. Demand for the affordable units is so strong that completed projects typically have been entirely leased within a week of opening, noted Cristina Agra-Hughes, L.A. Redevelopment’s president. “There’s almost no turnover, and there’s always a waiting list of 50 to 60 (qualified prospective) tenants at each project,” she said. Dan Zander, a partner in the Sperry Van Ness investment property brokerage who specializes in Northridge area apartments, said he’s not surprised that L.A. Redevelopment’s units leased so quickly. “The Northridge area is still struggling with an overall apartment vacancy rate of about 12 percent, but a lot of the renovated and rebuilt properties are only about 2 percent vacant,” Zander noted. The L.A. Redevelopment developers typically receive tax credits for 15 years. The renovated and rebuilt units remain under the moderate-income restrictions for 40 years. Developing and administering affordable housing projects can be tricky, company officials say. “You absolutely need a sophisticated organization and staff that can oversee the entire operation identifying prospective projects, gaining government approvals, securing the financing, performing the physical construction, screening prospective tenants and managing the properties,” said Gary Freedman, a senior Ezralow Co. principal. Once the development team identifies a redevelopment or renovation project and performs extensive physical inspections and other such “due diligence” analysis, it works closely with the Housing Department to prepare plans and set rent levels, Agra-Hughes noted. Then each project competes for the federal tax credits, which the State of California allocates on a point system weighted in favor of distressed neighborhoods, large family-sized units and affordability, Agra-Hughes continued.

newhall ranch/r.e. report/d.taub/mike1st/mark2nd DANIEL TAUB Staff Reporter SANTA CLARITA It would be the largest master-planned community in the history of Los Angeles County, encompassing 19 square miles in an area north of the San Fernando Valley. It would be home to nearly 70,000 residents. About 19,300 people would work in its business park and at its retail stores and other businesses. But the planned community of Newhall Ranch which is envisioned by Newhall Land and Farming Co. to follow in the footsteps of nearby Valencia is facing opposition from environmentalists and Santa Clarita city officials, who say it would put too much stress on an area with limited resources. The Valencia-based developer is holding public hearings through mid-February on the recently released draft environmental impact report for the Newhall Ranch community, which would be adjacent to Valencia between the Golden State (5) Freeway and the Ventura County line near Six Flags Magic Mountain. Newhall Land officials hope the master-planned community will evolve into another Valencia, the thriving planned community that the company began developing in the mid-1960s and that is still experiencing growth. “We have a good reputation and a lot of experience to draw on as to how to build a new community,” said Marlee Lauffer, a Newhall spokeswoman. Newhall Ranch which is expected to include more than 25,000 apartments, townhouses and upscale houses has been designed to include 274 acres of community parks, 60 acres of neighborhood parks, a community lake offering fishing and boating, an 18-hole golf course, a 200-acre business park and more than 50 miles of pedestrian, equestrian and bicycle trails. A high school, a middle school, five elementary schools, three fire stations, a public library, a water reclamation plant, an electric substation and 30 miles of new roads are also a part of the plan. Newhall Ranch’s businesses and residences will be distributed among five “villages” Riverwood, Oak Valley, Portero Valley, Long Canyon and the Mesas. Each village has been designed to create a “small town” feeling and each will have its own movie theater, shops and meeting places. Over the last few months, the project’s draft EIR has been circulated and a series of public hearings has begun. Although Newhall Land has been successful with its other Santa Clarita developments, Newhall Ranch faces significant opposition from environmentalists and other community members, including an official declaration of non-support from the Santa Clarita City Council. While the Newhall Ranch site is outside Santa Clarita city limits in unincorporated L.A. County, the proposed community would put an extra strain on limited street, sewer, educational and recreational resources within the city, council members said. Project opponents speaking before the L.A. County Regional Planning Commission have argued that Newhall Ranch would produce enough traffic to clog local roads and Interstate 5 the Santa Clarita Valley’s primary link to the San Fernando Valley, downtown L.A., the Westside and other points to the south. Local school officials also have spoken out against the current Newhall Ranch plan. Although Newhall Ranch would have its own schools, William S. Hart Union High School District officials as well as other local school district officials have criticized the plan for underprojecting population growth and future burdens on local schools. Other issues that have been raised include whether Newhall Land should pay for building a Metrolink rail line through Newhall Ranch, whether the amount of water available in the Santa Clarita Valley could support a new influx of residents, and concern that the company’s campaign contributions to state and county legislators could unduly influence the approval process. After completion of public hearings, Newhall Land will prepare and release by April or May a final EIR and responses to public concerns. That also is the time at which the developer hopes to win approval from L.A. County’s Regional Planning Commission, which is currently reviewing the Newhall Ranch plan. The plan must then go to the L.A. County Board of Supervisors for final approval before construction can begin. “We expect to start development of Newhall Ranch somewhere around the year 2000,” Lauffer said. The community would then be built over a period of about 25 years, but its first residents would likely move in about a year after development began, she said. Jim Lindvall, an associate vice president with commercial real estate brokerage Grubb & Ellis Co., said Newhall Land has an opportunity to do something with its new development that it failed to do with Valencia build houses that attract executives. “It’s been a nice bedroom community, but it doesn’t have a lot of the higher-end executive housing,” he said. Lindvall said that building spacious houses with access to golf courses and other amenities will eventually attract large companies and other support businesses to the area. “If you can get the CEO to move out there,” he said, “you can get his company to move out there somewhere down the road.”

btl/feb3/22″.sfvbj Politicians reborn Is there life after term limits? Apparently so if you’ve got friends in high places and are willing to take a pay cut. Former California Assemblywoman Paula Boland (R-Granada Hills) who in November lost a state Senate bid after being ousted by term limits has been appointed by Gov. Pete Wilson to the California Narcotic Addict Evaluation Authority, a parole board for drug abusers convicted of felonies. The leader of the Valley secession movement will earn $38,094 a year in her new job quite a bit less than the $75,600 she pulled in each year as a legislator. Meanwhile, former Assemblyman Richard Katz, who led the Democrats in the state’s lower house before being forced out in 1996 by term limits, was named to the California Medical Commission, the state agency that negotiates Medi-Cal contracts with hospitals. Appointing Katz was new Assembly Speaker Cruz Bustamante. Unlike Boland, Katz will not have to suffer a pay cut in his new gig. He’ll earn $75,600 a year the same salary he got as a lawmaker. Ready for takeoff The ultimate in jet-setting status symbols the new $35 million Gulfstream V corporate jet was scheduled to be trotted out at Van Nuys Airport last week. Why was Van Nuys given a higher priority than the airport in mogul-laden Burbank? Perhaps Gulfstream higher-ups thought it was more important to show off the high-flying Gulfstream V to a key current customer none other than publishing mogul Bob Petersen. Petersen Aviation, which operates at the Van Nuys Airport, is said to own a couple of Gulfstream’s previous models and handles a couple of other Gulfstream jets for clients. Not to mention that Van Nuys’ runway is 8,000 feet long 2,000 feet longer than Burbank’s and thus better able to accommodate the latest in flight technology. The new “G-5” seats up to eight passengers (plus crew of four), can fly at altitudes of up to 51,000 feet and has a range of 6,500 nautical miles. Flying southwest out of Van Nuys, that would put you down in Auckland, New Zealand. Vatican mystery Who ever heard of a Roman named Father Doyle? Officials at Burbank-based 1928 Inc. have. Two years ago, 1928, a jewelry manufacturer, was in negotiations with the Vatican to produce a new line of jewelry based on art and artifacts from the Vatican’s vast libraries. The Vatican’s business manager is named Father Doyle, and he wanted a guarantee against royalties. He was a good negotiator, according to 1928 officials. Is Doyle a New Yorker serving time in Rome? Or from Dublin? Or maybe even a prot & #233;g & #233; of our own Cardinal Roger Mahony? “No, he was an Italian,” insists David Sukonik, vice president at 1928. “He is just one of those rarities a man of the cloth with good business sense.” That explains it. Comedy gets ugly There’s trouble on the set at Universal City-based DreamWorks Television, where an ugly spat between actor Arsenio Hall and the executive producer of Hall’s soon-to-debut show reportedly led to the latter’s exit from the project. Hall’s show, which doesn’t yet have a title, is scheduled to appear in the 9:30 p.m. slot Wednesday on ABC. But the departure of executive producer David Rosenthal, who is best known as creator of the hit show “Ellen,” could delay the series’ debut. According to industry trade paper Daily Variety, Hall and Rosenthal got into an argument on the set over the show’s writing and direction. “Hall is said to have made some unflattering remarks about Rosenthal’s anatomy and told him to go write some jokes,” Variety reported. Bargain bagels Studio City-based Jerry’s Famous Deli has thrown its dough into the escalating L.A.-area bagel. But with huge banners in front of each of its restaurants advertising “BAGEL WAR. All varieties 18 cents each,” the deli chain has chosen to distinguish its bagels on the basis of price, not taste. Jerry’s questions all the hype surrounding the round starch. “It’s just flour and water,” said Guy Starkman, director of operations. “We don’t need to charge 60 cents for a bagel it doesn’t really cost that much to make a bagel.”

real brief/SFVFeb/bb/4+ inches/mike1st/mark2nd The Warner Center Plaza III highrise in Woodland Hills, which has sat almost entirely vacant since its 1991 completion, has landed a tenant for nearly 10 percent of its office space. Financial Indemnity Co., a “non-standard” (i.e., high-risk) automobile insurance specialist, has signed a 10-year, $14 million lease for 55,000 of the tower’s 591,000 square feet. That brings the tower’s occupancy rate up to just under 30 percent. Financial Indemnity will relocate its corporate headquarters across the San Fernando Valley from the increasingly pricey Burbank Media District to the less costly Warner Center insurance haven in Woodland Hills. Financial Indemnity is currently located in the Disney Channel building, 3800 W. Alameda Ave. in Burbank. The company has committed to the never-occupied 17th and 18th floors within the Plaza III tower at 21650 Oxnard St. in Woodland Hills, said CB Commercial Real Estate Group’s Andy Fishburn, who oversees leasing at the Warner Center Plaza highrise complex and adjacent Warner Center Business Park. Fishburn and CB’s Bob Pearson and Tony Acerra represented property owner AH Warner Center Properties LLC in the lease negotiations. Grubb & Ellis Co.’s Maury Gentile and Jim Lindvall negotiated the relocation lease on Financial Indemnity’s behalf. Brad Berton

SFLIST/jb/mike1st/mark2nd JOE BEL BRUNO Staff Reporter The one common thread connecting most of the San Fernando Valley’s top accounting firms is that they cater to the fast-growing entertainment industry. In this issue’s List, the five top-ranked firms cited entertainment among their industry specialties. At the top is Miller Kaplan & Co., with Grobstein Horwath & Co. in the No. 2 spot. “There is certainly a tie-in between the accounting and the Valley entertainment industry,” said George Nadel Rivin, a partner with Miller Kaplan. “You can’t help but be responsive to the industries located in your own backyard and no industry has had the tremendous growth in this region like the entertainment industry.” Miller Kaplan currently provides accounting services to 1,200 television and radio stations in more than 100 markets around the nation. The firm handles everything from full-service to monthly accounts. Rivin said the 55-year-old firm has now fully bounced back from the recession, and expects this growth to continue over the next three years. Miller Kaplan has hired several new associates during the past few months, with plans to recruit more from local colleges. “This firm has grown from a small local firm into the largest firm in the Valley by treating every client as if they are our only client,” Rivin said. “That’s how we plan to continue our growth.” Accounting firms are ranked on the List by the number of accounting professionals they employ in the San Fernando Valley. Miller Kaplan employs 88, while Grobstein has 86. The No. 3-ranked firm is Kellogg & Andelson Accounting. The Sherman Oaks-based firm also cited entertainment among its industry specialties, and employs 63 accounting professionals in the Valley. William Wall, Kellogg’s chief financial officer, said most of the firm’s new clients are in the entertainment industry. But, it has also experienced growth by adding clients from non-entertainment industries that have been riding on the entertainment industry’s coattails. During the past year, for example, Kellogg has picked up several new real estate clients. All of them have been busy leasing commercial space to entertainment companies moving into or expanding in the area. “It’s all interconnected,” Wall said. “The Burbank-Glendale area seems to be doing really well in both of those industries, and that’s good news for us.” He said Kellogg has also grown by representing privately owned nursing facilities throughout the state. Other firms making the List include No. 4-ranked American Express Tax and Business Services, a subsidiary of American Express Co.’s travel services corporation. That firm has added 15 accounting professionals to its Valley operation since last year, bringing its total to 60. In a recent interview, Les Shapiro, a managing director with American Express, attributed the firm’s growth to a large number of acquisitions in 1996. “The Woodland Hills office alone had five CPA firm acquisitions,” he said. The top four Valley firms are also among the 20 largest in Los Angeles County. Those four firms are the 10th, 11th, 13th and 14th largest accounting firms in L.A. County.

SFVREbriefs/bb/8 inches/1stjc/mark2nd Optical device manufacturer Century Precision Optics has agreed to expand and relocate its headquarters to 21,332 square feet of commercial space at 11049 Magnolia Blvd. in North Hollywood. Motion picture industry specialist Century Precision, which publicly held Tinsley Laboratories acquired last year, signed a seven-year lease with property owner 11049 Magnolia Boulevard Investments for space formerly occupied by the State of California. Daum Commercial Real Estate Services represented the tenant in the lease negotiations, while John Alle Co. represented the landlord. No financial details of the transaction were disclosed. Following extensive tenant improvements, about 20 employees will be employed at the “concrete block” building in connection with the planned first-quarter 1997 relocation. Century Precision Optics is currently located nearby at 10713 Burbank Blvd., also in North Hollywood.

minimed/dy/19″/1stjc/mark2nd DOUGLAS YOUNG Staff Reporter This has been a rough stretch for most of L.A.’s publicly traded biomed firms but not MiniMed Technologies. Thanks to recent advances in the treatment of severe diabetes, the five-year-old Sylmar company has become an industry leader that commands 80 percent of the U.S. market for external insulin pumps. The pumps, about the size a pager, are worn on the belt, feeding a continuous supply of insulin into the wearer’s body. They are more convenient than the twice-daily insulin injections traditionally used to treat severe diabetes. The company’s pioneering technology and strong performance have won strong praise on Wall Street, where its stock rose 148 percent last year. Most other publicly-traded biomedical firms in L.A. County took a beating. MiniMed is the fourth company for biomed entrepreneur Alfred Mann. The research for the company’s current pumps began at Mann’s last venture, Pacesetter. Other biomed firms were competing with MiniMed to develop similar pumps when his firm launched its first products, according to Mann. “When we came out with our pumps, there were 34 companies trying to do it,” said Mann. That included pharmaceutical giants Eli Lilly & Co. and Baxter International, which both tried and failed at developing the process. Indeed, MiniMed’s only remaining competitor is Disetronic Holding AG, a Swiss company that controls the remaining 20 percent of the U.S. market for external insulin pumps. Wall Street is enamored in part because MiniMed has a way of outperforming analysts’ earnings expectations, said Melissa Wilmoth, an analyst at Smith Barney. “When you have that kind of track record, you’ll be awarded a premium for your stock,” she said. The company is expected to report net income for the year ended Dec. 31 of between $4 million and $4.5 million (36 cents and 39 cents per share), compared with $1.8 million (17 cents) for 1995. Revenue is expected to be between $55 million and $60 million vs. $45.1 million in 1995. Investors also are bullish on MiniMed because of the vast untapped market in the United States, Wilmoth said. She estimated that the company currently has a penetration of only 3 percent to 4 percent among the 800,000 to 1 million people in the United States who require external forms of insulin to treat their diabetes. “There’s a huge potential market, and a couple of studies show reduced complications if you use a pump,” Wilmoth said. In many cases, she added, doctors do not recommend external insulin pumps to their patients either because they aren’t aware of the benefits or they are simply unfamiliar with the devices. To remedy that, MiniMed conducts seminars in major U.S. cities each quarter to educate doctors especially primary care physicians. It also entered into a marketing alliance with German company Boehringer Mannheim, which manufactures strip and meter devices for diabetics to measure their glucose levels. Boehringer Mannheim will advertise MiniMed pumps in its newsletter for diabetics as part of the alliance, while MiniMed will include coupons for Boehringer Mannheim’s products with its pumps. “The marketing campaign is very unstructured now, but we hope it will become more structured over time,” Wilmoth said. Future success inevitably hinges on going beyond insulin pumps. The company has already developed a new glucose sensor that is currently on sale in Europe and could be available to U.S. consumers by sometime in 1998, according to Mann. Unlike existing sensors, which require diabetics to prick their fingers and place a blood drop on a strip and into a meter to get glucose level readings, MiniMed’s new sensors are inserted under the skin for extended periods of time and read glucose levels continuously. When levels become dangerously high or low, an alarm is sounded so the diabetic can take action immediately. “Their sensors could revolutionize the way diabetes is treated because they would obviate the need for conventional strips and meters,” Wilmoth said. MiniMed also is working on ways to combine its pump and sensor technology to create a completely prosthetic pump, which would be implanted in the bodies of diabetics and allow them to live essentially normal lives free of constant injections and testing of their blood sugar levels. Mann said development of the prosthetic system’s component parts is virtually finished, and now it will take a couple of years to integrate the parts into a complete system. He estimated a final product could reach the market as early as the year 2000.

SMALLBIZ.COL/20inches/1stjc/mark2nd Business owners frequently approach me for a loan when what they really need is an equity investor. I’m the chief credit officer for a loan fund. The biggest difference between debt and equity is that debt has a specific term for repayment, an interest rate and a specified repayment schedule frequently level monthly payments, as in a mortgage, for example. Equity investments are typically structured as a means of sharing in profit (or lack thereof) and don’t limit the upside (or the downside) of what the return can be. Bankers offer debt, not equity. Here are some examples of when you want to consider obtaining equity. – If you cannot see how a loan can be immediately repaid, but you’re sure that future profits will be there if the debt service can just be put off for a year or so. – If you’re launching an untested product or entering an untested market, or doing both, you don’t want to be saddled with a very certain debt. – If your company needs patient capital to meet day-to-day needs for receivables, inventory and payroll; then debt won’t work unless profits can replace it very quickly. Chances are you really need an equity investment of permanent working capital. – If you need outside expertise in marketing, management or product development to realize your company’s potential then an equity investor that has a voice on your board may be the answer. Most business owners have an allergy to the whole notion of seeking equity investments. They believe the following myths about obtaining investment dollars: Myth No. 1: You have to give up controlling ownership to obtain debt. This isn’t true; lots of deals are done without signing 51 percent of the stock to equity investors, each deal’s different and it depends on the size of the new investment in relationship to a company’s existing net worth (including any subordinated officer’s debt). Myth No. 2: The cost of obtaining equity is too high. In fact, it’s coming down all the time. Not every deal requires a ton of legal work or underwriting. Some joint ventures can be structured cheaply and quickly and involve little more than an agreement. Myth No. 3: You must be publicly traded if want equity dollars. This depends on the investor. Yes, public pension funds have to have a degree of liquidity to their investments, but does a wealthy retired businessman looking for a long term, high yielding investment? Not necessarily. Private placements can work fine for him. Myth No. 4: You have to report all your company’s income if outsiders take an equity piece. This is not a myth, actually it’s completely true. The laws regarding fraud and misrepresentation apply. If you’re dishonest with the IRS, don’t take on investors. It will only multiply you chances of getting caught. Once the myths are dispelled, small companies can better understand the importance of the equity option especially for a business located in the San Fernando Valley. In many cases debt no longer addresses a company’s needs for expansion capital because: – Companies lack debt repayment ability on a historic basis due to their need to borrow large amounts of debt after the 1994 Northridge earthquake. – Real estate equity has been destroyed by declining real estate values leaving insufficient collateral for new lending. – In a low-inflation, stable-interest-rate environment, debt financing doesn’t make sense because financing costs can’t be passed along. – The balance sheets of small companies are already too highly leveraged when contrasted to those of publicly traded companies able to attract private investment dollars. At some point the banks just say no. These reasons, along with a long sustained bull market in equities and a liberalization of securities laws to permit greater access to equity by small companies, all point to a new direction for small business financing in the future. New investment instruments and the number of new ways of structuring equity deals for smaller companies have exploded since the l980’s. Limited liability corporations, changes in Securities and Exchange Commission Private Placement Rules, Small Corporations Offering Registers tell part of the story. Changes in securities laws, both nationally and at the state level, are partially responsible for this; but I think it’s more a function of supply and demand in the market. Lots of capital is seeking highly yielding investments now that interest rates are below 10 percent. That’s hard to find in an overvalued stock market. The explosion of baby boom investment dollars will only further serve to fuel this demand. Smaller companies will be the future for investors seeking higher yield. This segment of the economy can put capital to good use to create new jobs and income if it opens itself up to the possibilities and uses for equity dollars. Small companies must also find the right help in obtaining it. That’s the subject for my next article. Bruce Dobb is the credit officer with the Valley Economic Development Council’s Revolving Loan Fund.

Van Nuys/SFVFeb/26 inches/1stjc/mark2nd BRAD BERTON Staff Reporter Depending on one’s perspective, the latest Van Nuys Civic Center makeover plan is too complicated to attract a private developer, too small to help clean up the neighborhood or a well-conceived plan that could kick-start revitalization. The City of Los Angeles began soliciting interest from private development teams in late January for a 200,000-square-foot Valley “City Hall” office building within the Van Nuys Civic Center district at which various city, county, state and federal agencies would consolidate. But the city won’t know until early March just how many developers are serious about becoming the city’s partner in the project despite efforts to scale down earlier plans and make the public-private partnership more private-sector-friendly. “These competitions cost lots of money and require lots of effort,” said prominent local office developer Jerry Snyder of Miracle Mile-based J.H. Snyder Co. “The Van Nuys neighborhood is fine for development, but it’s much easier to go out and buy property on our own,” Snyder added. However, the leader of a key local homeowners association said the plan doesn’t do enough to eradicate blight. “It’s a good start and a good idea, it’s part of what that particular area needs. But the problem is that it doesn’t go far enough because it only addresses the Civic Center and only one site there,” said Don Schultz, president of the Van Nuys Homeowners Association. The city “should make a concentrated effort to clean up the whole stretch of Van Nuys Boulevard” from Vanowen Street south to the railroad tracks just north of Oxnard Street, he said. “It looks horrible; that’s what is keeping businesses away,” Schultz said. For decades the Van Nuys area was a major commercial strip in the San Fernando Valley, but the proliferation of malls and the rise of other shopping districts has contributed to the area’s decline. Los Angeles City Councilman Marvin Braude, who represents the area, said the new civic building is needed as a first step in revitalizing the area. “I consider it the most important and badly needed project in the San Fernando Valley,” Braude said. “It is the essence the heart of the Valley. It is the distribution place for serving the Valley. It is the symbolic center of the Valley.” The city’s top real estate official said the Civic Center project reflects the Riordan administration’s efforts to facilitate a private-sector approach to L.A.’s facilities programs. “We’re trying to privatize the development process to the maximum extent possible to get the most benefit from private participation,” said Dan Rosenfeld, the Department of General Services’ Assistant General Manager for Asset Management. Rosenfeld also stressed that the city is prepared to offer loans of up to $75,000 to cover a development team’s pre-development costs if for some reason the project doesn’t go ahead. Claire Bartels, the department’s point person on the project, noted that more than 60 parties had requested copies of the “request for qualifications” the first week after they became available Jan. 21. Notable building firms include Dinwiddie Construction Co., Caruso Affiliated Holdings, Kajima Development Corp., Pankow Cos., Voit Cos., Keller Construction, Goldrich & Kest and Koll Group. “The response has been very favorable,” Bartels commented. In replacing the old, earthquake-damaged existing structure in the Van Nuys Civic Center district, the city expects to lease a 2-plus-acre site to a private development team for 20 to 30 years and lease back much of the office space, Rosenfeld explained. The private development team would oversee design, financing, construction and marketing of the facility, which would include shops, outdoor dining/ entertainment areas and a parking structure. Thus, Rosenfeld and his colleagues among the city’s facilities and development staffers are expecting more interest from developers in the current project than came with a more complex building plan the city floated about five years ago. That’s because the earlier “request for proposals” became so loaded down with requirements such as child care facilities and affordable housing contributions that there was no interest, according to one consultant involved in the previous RFP distribution. “The government will always be at least somewhat bureaucratic,” Rosenfeld conceded. But under the city’s revised approach, “it’s really not much more bureaucratic than doing a build-to-suit for an Amgen or a DreamWorks,” he added. The revised project is also scaled down from a more ambitious program that Braude, who is retiring this year, had proposed two years ago. That Civic Center makeover was to include a civic auditorium, movie theaters, a mix of new offices and retail development even a gateway bell tower. But his council colleagues nixed the bulk of that plan, leaving the government office building and much-needed parking structure as the primary components of the current rendition. The planned new building, adjacent to the existing eight-story, 1932-vintage building on Sylvan Street near Van Nuys Boulevard, is to house city employees now stationed at various sites around the San Fernando Valley and even some to be relocated from downtown L.A., Rosenfeld added. His department began sending out requests for qualifications to interested parties on Jan. 21. Completed qualification packages are due back to the General Services Department’s Asset Management Division March 3. At public hearings on Braude’s more extensive previous redevelopment proposal, several Van Nuys businesspeople and homeowners, including Schultz, had questioned whether the city could attract a private developer without first implementing programs aimed at revitalizing downtown Van Nuys’ blighted primary thoroughfare: Van Nuys Boulevard. But others had supported the proposal as a key potential catalyst to further redevelopment in the neighborhood. The council representative “has the inherent responsibility to make (Van Nuys Boulevard) what it used to be, the heart of Van Nuys” with bustling legitimate retail business rather than “illegal signage and street vendors,” Schultz said. But he added that developers are more likely to respond to the current proposal. Previous development proposals “were too broad and large and that is what was distracting developers.” The scaled-down plan should make it easier to “attract a developer that won’t think (the project) is too overwhelming.” Developer Snyder said last week that he’s not interested in competing for a public contract with other private development teams. “I just don’t like reading scripts for parts any more. There’s an enormous amount of design work involved, and there’s the endless meeting with bureaucrats,” he said.