A married couple is opening a franchise of United Defense Tactical in Thousand Oaks with the goal of bringing the self-defense training that they’ve taken advantage of to the community.
The facility is being built at a strip mall at 672-684 N. Moorpark Road where Elyas and Stephanie Peshtaz have leased out multiple storefronts. They expect to open the doors to their business in May.
The franchise brings a variety of self-defense training offerings under one roof. The Peshtaz’s operation will be among the company’s first franchises.
“It’s not necessarily about firearm training or going to punch someone. Ninety percent of the time, it’s about mental preparation,” Elyas Peshtaz said. “A lot of people, when they’re put in this situation, are like a deer in headlights and don’t know what to do. A big focus is how you de-escalate a situation and avoid this conflict.”
It’s an experience they are personally informed by.
As the couple parked their car at a restaurant for dinner one evening, another motorist pulled alongside them, shouting obscenities and blocking them as they tried to walk around his vehicle. The man challenged Elyas Peshtaz to a fight and aggressively knocked Stephanie Peshtaz’s phone from her hand as she recorded the incident. The aggressor drove away after passersby intervened and called the police.
Rattled, the couple enrolled in United Tactical Defense, which was founded in 2019 by Wes Fox as an avenue to teach “dynamic self-defense” to a wider audience.
“We saw the need for it in our family and realized this is something the whole community needs,” Stephanie Peshtaz said.
To open the franchise, the Peshtazs are paying a $40,000 franchise fee and have an item investment range of $250,000-$500,000. They expect to have 4,000-6,000 square feet of space.
The facility will offer month-to-month memberships, which will be all-inclusive of the facility’s offerings; they have not yet worked out price tiers. There will be regular classes in hand-to-hand combat, jiu jitsu and, for beginners, virtual firearm training. There will also be an advanced class, which uses mock firearms and rubber bullets.
The Peshtazs said they also expect to offer specialty classes addressing things such as self-defense for women and how to respond to carjacking attempts. There also will be a multipurpose room with gym mats and weights for exercising.
The couple expects to hire two to four trainers with law enforcement or military backgrounds. They added that they expect to work to help train people for law enforcement and security guard roles.
Trio: Mahmee’s Linda Hanna, left, Melissa Hanna and Sunny Walia.
Universal City-based maternal health care company MCH Ventures Inc., which does business as Mahmee, has launched its first partnership with a local hospital to provide its wraparound maternal and parent services when patients leave the hospital.
Mahmee last month entered into a partnership with Providence St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica to expand lactation care, improve the postpartum experience and provide support for new parents when they leave the hospital.
“Our partnership with Providence Saint John’s aims to alleviate the difficulties that new mothers and families face after birth,” Linda Hanna, one of Mahmee’s co-founders and director of care programs, said in the announcement.
“As veteran maternal health care practitioners, we know how to make this transition as smooth and nurturing as possible,” Hanna said.
While financial terms were not disclosed, a spokeswoman for Mahmee said Providence St. John’s is paying a fee to Mahmee over the course of the three-year deal.
It is the first partnership with a local hospital for Mahmee, though the company had had partnerships for two years with two Washington D.C.-area hospitals. The company also has partnerships with several standalone pediatric centers, mostly in Los Angeles County.
“At a time when many hospitals are grappling with resource constraints and scaling back on maternal health support, our joint effort is setting a bold example of commitment to maternity care,” Amanda Williams, Mahmee’s medical director, said.
Mahmee was launched in 2014 by the mother-daughter duo of Linda and Melissa Hanna. Linda Hanna was a registered nurse and lactation consultant who helped create the modern maternity and lactation programs at both Oakland-based Kaiser Permanente and Beverly Grove-based Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Melissa Hanna had gained experience running business operations through her work with several startups.
The duo teamed up to create Mahmee along with Sunny Walia, who serves as chief technology officer.
The platform first focused on breastfeeding questions and post-partum support for new moms. It has since evolved to include a more complete suite of maternal health programs, including the use of doulas, trained professionals who provide support during childbirth.
The aim, according to co-founder Melissa Hanna, is to make the entire childbirth and infant-rearing experience safer for the infant and the mother.
Thousand Oaks biotech giant Amgen Inc. marked the new year with both some bad news and a positive development.
On the unwelcome news front, on Jan. 19, the Food and Drug Administration announced it was placing a “boxed warning” label on all units of Amgen’s blockbuster drug Prolia, which is commonly used to treat osteoporosis in both men and women. The warning is for the possibility of advanced kidney disease patients developing dangerously low calcium levels – especially patients on dialysis.
The positive development was Amgen’s Jan. 8 announcement that it was teaming up with Santa Clara tech giant Nvidia Corp. to build generative artificial intelligence models to aid in the discovery of biomarkers and help develop precision medicine therapies.
Prolia warning label
Prolia is the brand name for the drug denosumab, and it is Amgen’s number two drug ranked by sales volume, closely trailing leader Enbrel.
During the third quarter, Amgen reported $986 million in sales of Prolia, up 14% from the same quarter a year earlier. That compares with $1.02 billion in third quarter sales of Enbrel, which was down 6% year over year. Amgen then projected that roughly 7 million patients would be treated with Prolia for all of last year.
This growth, though, may not last. Prolia is slated to lose its patent protection in February of next year, opening the door for generic alternatives.
The boxed warning is the most serious warning level issued by the FDA to warn consumers and health care professionals about potentially dangerous side effects. The agency acted after its investigation into a series of complaints about low calcium levels among patients with advanced chronic kidney disease.
An Amgen technician.
The agency’s warning advises patients considering using Prolia to consult with a health care professional with expertise in kidney disease. It advises patients already taking Prolia to ensure they are getting adequate calcium and Vitamin D intake and, if necessary, take steps to boost that intake. And for those patients with kidney disease who are taking Prolia, the agency urges frequent monitoring of calcium levels.
The warning advises health care professionals to assess a patient’s kidney function before prescribing Prolia and to consider other drugs to treat osteoporosis if the patient already has severe kidney disease.
Amgen responded to a request for comment with a statement.
“Patient safety is of the utmost importance to Amgen,” the statement began. “The FDA recently made the decision to update the label for Prolia. The updated label recognizes a risk of severe hypocalcemia following Prolia administration in patients identified with advanced chronic kidney disease.”
The statement then sought to give some perspective.
“Approximately 3% of treatment naïve Prolia patients with a known level of chronic kidney disease are classified as having advanced chronic kidney disease. We remain confident in Prolia and its overall benefit/risk profile.”
AI project
As for the collaboration with Nvidia, Amgen said in its announcement that it plans to use a Nvidia data center platform that will be installed at Amgen’s genetics center in Reykjavik, Iceland. That platform will act as a supercomputer, allowing Amgen to develop its artificial intelligence models.
“For more than a decade, Amgen has been preparing for this hinge moment we are seeing in the industry, powered by the union of technology and biotechnology,” David Reese, executive vice president and chief technology officer at Amgen, said in the announcement. “We look forward to combining the breadth and maturity of our world-class human data capabilities at Amgen with Nvidia’s technologies.”
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Covers: Mock-ups of what the new Inside the Valley magazine will look like.
For 28 years, the San Fernando Valley Business Journal has represented and covered the Valley-area business community like no other media source. I’m excited to announce that the publication format will change from a biweekly newspaper to a bimonthly magazine. The new magazine, branded as Inside the Valley, will be distributed to subscribers starting in March.
Two years ago, we merged operations of the San Fernando Valley and Los Angeles Business Journals to provide more consistent news coverage throughout Greater Los Angeles. The concept was simple: two publications, one editorial voice. The results have been impressive. In 2023, both the Los Angeles and San Fernando Valley Business Journals received top honors as best regional large tabloid and best regional small tabloid in the country, respectively, by the Alliance of Area Business Publishers.
This new magazine product, dedicated to the Valley’s Community of Business™, is an important component of our long-term strategy and is overdue. The format change allows our editorial team to increase its time-sensitive Valley coverage within the pages of the weekly edition of the Los Angeles Business Journal. At the same time, it allows us to dive deeper into the people, companies and industries leading the Valley area in the pages of the magazine.
Inside the Valley will don the Los Angeles Business Journal masthead and will continue to cover important business developments, economic trends and newsmakers, but in a way that will have greater longevity. The Business Journal will continue to expand local Valley business events including panel discussions, networking receptions honoring Valley leaders, and recognition programs from the commercial real estate awards to our women’s leadership symposium and our diversity, equity and inclusion program.
“I see tremendous opportunity in the upcoming changes to the way we approach our coverage of the Valley,” said Hannah Welk, the newly announced interim editor of the Los Angeles Business Journal. “Inside the Valley will allow the Business Journal to showcase the companies and leaders who have made the Valley thrive with longer pieces, engrossing stories and a unique design.
“Furthermore, the inclusion of Valley-based companies in the Los Angeles Business Journal on a weekly basis will give these companies greater visibility and allow us more possibilities to spotlight these organizations,” she said.
Longstanding must-reads (which are already in magazine format), The Valley 200 and The Lists, will continue to publish and will be incorporated into the new magazines. The Lists will be unveiled in digital format each week, with many of them also appearing within the print edition as well. Our digital content covering the Valley will continue with three newsletters per week focusing on business news, the community and The Lists.
The ways in which readers consume content is constantly evolving. We’re committed to providing award-winning content in all of the ways our readers choose to absorb it: in newspaper print, in various digital formats, in person through face-to-face events, and now, in magazine print. Regional business magazines are among the fastest-growing media platforms throughout the country, offering a unique reader experience. Adding this to our array of products expands our media footprint and only increases engagement with our readers. If you are a San Fernando Valley Business Journal subscriber, you don’t have to do anything. You will automatically become a subscriber of the new magazine.
While the look and name may be changing, the San Fernando Valley Business Journal spirit is engrained in its pages and shares its goal of continuing to serve the Valley business community in new and evolving ways.
The Business Journal’s editor-in-chief, Charles Crumpley, has left the news operation after 18 years with the organization.
Hannah Welk, who has been a managing editor, has been promoted to interim editor.
“It has been an honor and a true pleasure to work here,” Crumpley said. “Journalism allows you to collaborate with talented, creative people under a ticking clock to accomplish your goal, and that is exhilarating. Time kept zooming by. Have I really been here all these years?”
Crumpley said he does not plan to retire but will take some time to explore his next step. The change is in effect: Crumpley’s last day was Friday; Welk became editor on Monday.
“I feel really good about this change,” Crumpley said. “The team is strong. Hannah has been managing editor more than a year and is a natural leader. I know she will excel in her new post.”
Josh Schimmels, the Business Journal’s publisher and chief executive, shares, “I’ve had the honor of working with Charlie in various capacities since 2010. His professionalism and dedication to the art of the story is unparalleled. Like the true leader he is, he’s positioned the editorial team to succeed for years to come. He’s been invaluable the past two years while we merged our two papers’ operations. To best use Charlie’s own terms, I give him a ‘tip of the hat’ and congratulate him for all that he’s done throughout our industry.”
Crumpley began his career as a reporter and eventually became a senior writer for the Kansas City Star, where he won several national honors including an Overall First Place Award, a kind of grand prize, from the National Press Club in 1987. He was the second reporter in the country to be embedded with the FDIC as it planned and executed the closing of an insolvent bank. Also, in 1990-91 he was a Fulbright scholar to Japan, and for years afterward Fulbright appointed him to selection committees, and he chaired several, to choose the next generation of foreign scholars.
Crumpley went on to be the business news editor at two metro daily newspapers, also working as a local television news commentator at one. He left his last post as business editor at the New Orleans Times-Picayune in late 2005 to be the editor of the Los Angeles Business Journal.
In his first stint as editor, which lasted 10 years, the Business Journal won the Best Newspaper award for large tabloids six times from the Alliance of Area Business Publishers, the main organization of business journals and other local and state-based business news publications. A different journalism organization, the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, once gave the Business Journal an award called the Best of the Best, a kind of grand prize.
In early 2016 Crumpley became editor and publisher of the sister publication, the San Fernando Valley Business Journal. It routinely won the Best Newspaper award for small tabloids from the alliance of business news publishers. Crumpley also won two awards for local civic leadership including a Star of the Valley honor in 2021 from the Valley Economic Alliance, presented by then-mayor Eric Garcetti.
When the two newspapers combined operations in March 2022, Crumpley became editor-in-chief of both publications to see the editorial staff through the transition. Last year, the Los Angeles Business Journal won the Best Newspaper award for large tabloids from the alliance while the San Fernando Valley Business Journal won for small tabloids.
Welk
“Charlie has been an amazing editor and mentor to me and to countless other journalists over the years,” Welk said. “We are sad to see him leave but will continue to build upon the foundation he has created for the Business Journal as a must-read publication for L.A.’s business community.”
Welk is a USC alum. After graduating, she became a business reporter at the Orange County Register. Welk has freelanced for various publications including The Real Deal and Crain’s before joining the Business Journal in 2018 as a real estate reporter. She was promoted to managing editor in 2022.
“I am incredibly excited for the opportunity to lead the Business Journal,” she said. “For more than 40 years, the Business Journal has served the community, telling stories of the people and companies that make up L.A. I’m thrilled to continue to build upon the publication’s impressive legacy.”
Deal: This Thousand Oaks building sold; it will house the Ventura County Fire Department administrative offices.
San Fernando Valley
Expanding: The Hilton Universal City Hotel will be complemented by an adjacent 18-story hotel.
The San Fernando Valley’s office vacancy rate was 21.1% in the fourth quarter, up from 20.6% in the previous quarter. No new office was under construction and the market experienced a net absorption of negative 75,470 square feet. Asking rents were $2.65 a square foot during the fourth quarter.
Main Events
Summerset Village, a 280-unit luxury multifamily community located in the foothills of the Santa Susana Mountains in Chatsworth, sold for $107 million. Institutional Property Advisors, a division of Calabasas-based Marcus & Millichap, represented the seller and procured the institutional buyer in the sale. The names of the seller and buyer were not disclosed.
In an expansion plan unveiled in November, Sun Hill Properties Inc., operator of Hilton Universal City Hotel, announced plans to build a 395-key hotel directly adjacent to the existing hotel. The new expansion plan includes a rooftop restaurant and spa. Construction is expected to be completed in 2026.
Santa Clarita Valley
Transaction: Four medical office condominiums traded for a combined $2.8 million.
In Santa Clarita, office vacancy rates remained fairly steady, slightly rising from 23.6% in the previous quarter to 23.8% in the fourth quarter. Asking rents dipped 9 cents quarter over quarter to $2.64 a square foot.
Main Events
Four medical office condominiums were sold in Valencia for a combined purchase price of $2.8 million. Located at 27335 Tourney Rd., the condos belong to a Class A, three-story medical office condominium complex called Tourney Place. The four medical offices each span approximately 5,600 square feet on the ground floor of the property’s sixth building. Spectrum Commercial Real Estate Inc. represented the buyer in the sale.
Corona del Mar-based Hanley Investment Group arranged the sale of a new Bliss Car Wash in Valencia for $3.72 million. The arrangement, part of a 1031 Exchange, marks Hanley Investment Group’s 80th car wash sale in the last 48 months.
Antelope Valley
Asset: A 24,000-square-foot property housing dd’s Discounts traded hands.
Antelope Valley’s industrial market remained strong, with 139,853 square feet under construction during the quarter. Vacancy rates rose slightly to 2.7%, up from 2.4% the previous quarter. Roughly 118,000 square feet sold or leased during the quarter.
Main Events
A new-construction, single-tenant Smart & Final Extra! sold at the Antelope Valley Plaza. Hanley Investment Group Real Estate Advisors’ Sean Cox, Bill Asher, Alexander Moore and Kevin Fryman represented the seller, PacWest Management Inc., in partnership with Evergreen Development Co. The buyer was not disclosed.
A 24,000-square-foot, single-tenant property occupied by dd’s Discounts at the Antelope Valley Plaza sold. Hanley Investment Group Real Estate Advisors’ Sean Cox, Bill Asher, Alexander Moore and Kevin Fryman represented the seller, PacWest Management Inc. The buyer was not disclosed.
Conejo Valley
Traded: Two multifamily assets sold for a combined $171 million.
The Conejo Valley experienced a 21.5% vacancy rate during the fourth quarter, up from 21.1% in the previous quarter. Negative 27,000 square feet was absorbed during the quarter, bringing the total net absorption year to date to negative 16,880. No new office product was under construction.
Main Events
Ventura County purchased a vacant 99,000-square-foot commercial office building in Thousand Oaks, which it plans to use as its fire department administrative headquarters. The low-rise building, known as 2400 Conejo Spectrum, sold for $14.9 million. Newmark Group Inc. represented the undisclosed seller.
Two multifamily complexes – Los Robles Apartments, a 253-unit asset built in 1972, and The Retreat at Thousand Oaks, a 146-unit property constructed in 1966 – traded hands in Thousand Oaks for a combined $171 million. Institutional Property Advisors, a division of Calabasas-based Marcus & Millichap brokered the portfolio sale, representing the seller, Decron Properties, and procured the buyer, FPA Multifamily.
Calabasas-based NewMark Merrill Cos. Inc. acquired a 172,000-square-foot retail shopping center in Thousand Oaks. The company purchased the asset, which it renamed The Collection at Janss Marketplace, to complement the existing Janss Marketplace. Seritage Retail Group was the seller.
A Class A, 750,000-square-foot, multi-building industrial project known as 101 Logistics Center in Oxnard became fully entitled and ready for leasing. The developer of the property, Stream Realty Partners, purchased the 41-acre site in June. Stream hired Newmark Group Inc. to lease the property.
A freestanding industrial structure spanning approximately 46,000 square feet sold for $13.7 million to Michele Bolour of Apollo Asset Management. The seller was Steve Sannett, a private investor. The facility came equipped with 7,540 square feet of dedicated office space. Lee & Associates managed the sale.
A 22,000-square-foot industrial building located at 5456 Endeavor Ct. Sold for $6.7 million to Hugh Cassar, the owner of Kretek International, a tobacco-distribution company. Lee & Associates managed the sale.
Burbank and Glendale
Property: A Glendale office sold for 60% less than its last purchase price.
While Burbank had no new office construction, Glendale was busy at work, with 186,308 square feet under construction. In Burbank, the vacancy was 19.7%, up from 17.3% the previous quarter. In Glendale, the vacancy was 29.1%, up from 28.3% the previous quarter. Negative 184,891 square feet were absorbed in Burbank, compared with negative 55,314 square feet absorbed in Glendale. Burbank remained on top with higher asking rates, coming in at more than a dollar more expensive per square foot than Glendale.
Main Events
Beverly Hills-based real estate investment trust Kennedy Wilson sold an office property located at 400 and 450 N Brand Blvd. in Glendale, for $60 million, or $136 per square foot. Kennedy Wilson had previously acquired the 441,000-square-foot complex from Beacon Capital Partners for $144 million in 2017, resulting in a 60% price decrease.
The City of Burbank purchased a Class C, 21,700-square-foot industrial asset located at 904-906 Lake St. for $8.2 million. The seller was Forgiato Inc. The deal came out to $377 per square foot. Lee & Associates brokered the deal.
RT Specialty, a wholesale distributor of specialty insurance products and services, renewed its 14,400-square-foot lease at Tower Burbank, a 460-foot office tower located at 3900 W. Alameda Avenue. RT Specialty has been a tenant since 2016. CBRE Group Inc. brokered the lease.
Office vacancy rates continued to rise in the fourth quarter in the San Fernando Valley and Ventura County markets, as employers are still struggling to entice employees back for in-person operations.
The year ended at a 20.7% vacancy rate, up from 20.3% the previous quarter, according to Colliers data.
“Many chief executives are still at a loss for how to best handle the return to office, Christopher Baer, a principal and office expert at Avison Young, said.
Doubt in the traditional office model has led some companies not to renew their leases. Yet, despite the rise in vacancies, office experts believe the market is in slow recovery mode and that the worst is seemingly behind.
“The San Fernando Valley office market survived a challenging 2023 with nominal leases signed and few sales transacted,” Baer said. “Submarkets sustained 660,000 square feet of negative absorption, but interestingly enough had 13,000 square feet of positive net absorption in the fourth quarter.”
Baer noted that leasing activity has picked up as many suspect interest rates to plateau by the middle of the year. He believes this year will see more subleases turn into direct leases, which will positively impact vacancy rates but not availability rates.
Solomon
“I think we’re going to see continued steady improvement,” David Solomon, a senior executive vice president and office expert at Colliers, said. “I think we’re going to continue to see rental rates slowly push up again.”
Solomon noted that he’s seen an uptick in occupancy and expects that trend to continue in the new year. However, he noted that things are “not improving on the ownership, capital side in terms of building valuations.”
“Tenant improvement (costs) have gone up exponentially,” Baer said. “It’s really difficult. What ends up happening is that landlords end up putting a lot more money in tenant improvements, and so do tenants, just in order to get their space built out for something that would have been a lot less expensive to build out pre-pandemic.”
Industrial market
On the industrial side of things, the San Fernando Valley and Ventura County market remained fairly tight.
The vacancy rate rose to 1.5%, up from 1.1% the previous quarter, according to Colliers – although experts noted this slight increase in leeway is actually healthy for the market.
Harding
“If you’re a tenant in a building and your lease is coming up and you want to move, either because of the functionality of the building, maybe you want a higher warehouse clear height, maybe you need more docks, maybe you want a different image, maybe you need more space, you go out to the market and look,” David Harding, an executive vice president and industrial expert at Colliers, said. “There just wasn’t a ton of options. (Extremely low vacancy rates) really paralyze the market a little bit because there’s not much movement. There’s nowhere to go.”
Andrew Berk, a principal and industrial expert at Avison Young, called the San Fernando Valley industrial market “chaotic and challenging.”
“You can look at numbers and look at the strength, and when you tell folks who are not in it every day that you’re in industrial, everyone looks at that asset class and says, ‘oh that must be great,’ without realizing the ramifications of coming with an extremely robust market,” Berk said. “It means that if you’re looking at a specific type of property or size, or with specific amenities, there’s only going to be one or two to choose from in a certain geography. So those challenges, and with pricing increases, it becomes a challenge to find something that makes sense for a lot of occupiers.”
In return, this has slowed transactions. “Folks who don’t have to sell, don’t want to sell,” he said. “Folks who want to buy, there’s not a lot to choose from.”
Rendering: District NoHo’s design attempts to further a move to transit-oriented communities.
A $1 billion mixed-use project is planned for North Hollywood’s Arts District – one that experts believe will anchor the community and aid in reshaping the scope of the area.
District NoHo, which is being developed by Trammell Crow Co. and its affiliate High Street Residential, as appointed by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, will span nearly 16 acres of land at the intersection of Lankershim and Chandler Boulevards, atop Metro’s already existing North Hollywood station.
“Metro is continually expanding their services to connect all of Los Angeles, making it increasingly advantageous to live and work on transit, and for developers to build there to meet that demand,” Greg Ames, senior managing director of Trammell Crow’s Southern California offices, said.
In total, the project will consist of 1,481 multifamilyunits – 366 of which will be income-restricted – plus 450,000 square feet of office space, 60,000 square feet of retail space, approximately 3,000 parking stalls and two acres of open space.
“It’s our largest assemblage to date of Metro-owned property around a station,” Wells Lawson, deputy executive office of joint development at Metro, said. “And it’s obviously a major station. It’s the third busiest in the Metro system.”
Dallas-based architecture firm HKS is the master planner of the project, overseeing its design as well as the other attached firms, including Culver City-based KFA Architecture, which is designing the affordable housing component, and San Francisco-based Gensler, which is designing the office space.
“The key to it has to do with collaboration,” said Greg Verabian, a partner and regional practice director of commercial and mixed-use projects at HKS Los Angeles. “It’s hard sometimes when you work with a bunch of designers. We all have our egos because design can be quite personal. But I think what was nice about this one is that everybody had space to develop something that they wanted to develop.”
Live, work and play
Built to stand on its own, District NoHo is intended to encapsulate all demands of life, where everything you need can theoretically exist in one place.
“The project itself is contemplated as a district,” Ames said. “There are architectural and design standards and an enhanced landscaping plan that really stitch this community together without creating any perceived barriers from the rest of the community. It’s very open and outwardly facing.”
Yet deeper within the district, broken down into eight blocks, each segment boasts a mixture of uses – from residential to office to retail and a plethora of restaurants.
“Each block could be independently built and could park itself and service itself without having to rely on other blocks providing any support for that,” Verabian said. “It becomes like filling in the voids of a neighborhood in a sense.”
One design element that Scott Baker, president and founder of RELM, the landscape architecture and urban design firm for the project, is particularly excited about is that District NoHo will bring the first ever shared street to Los Angeles.
“District Way (the street’s name) will be a very egalitarian, democratic street with no curbs where pedestrians and bikes and cars all can coexist,” Baker said, noting that cars will be “essentially put into a tertiary priority.”
“Looking at how we bring best practices to the district – how do we make it a pedestrian precinct specifically that accommodates bikes and reconciles bike movement – and connecting both pedestrians and bikes to transit, those have been key guiding strategies through the whole (landscaping) process,” he said.
Baker and his team are working to prioritize access to public space while ensuring sustainable initiatives are met, emphasizing strategies like shade equity and urban tree canopy.
North Hollywood evolution
Rendering: District NoHo’s design attempts to further a move to transit-oriented communities.
The neighborhood of North Hollywood has been in the spotlight of transformation over the last few decades, spurred by the additions of the Red and Orange Lines.
“When the Red Line extension happened back in 1999, I had been living in North Hollywood and I could understand why North Hollywood is north of Hollywood because I can be in Hollywood in like six minutes,” Karen Swift, director of community relations at Metro, said. “All of a sudden it was this game changer.”
A project nine years in the making, District NoHo is expected to build upon the already established North Hollywood Metro station as part of an ongoing effort by Metro to build more transit-oriented communities.
“Transit brings communities together,” Lawson said, highlighting that one of the biggest pros of public transit is improving access to opportunities.
“Part of what you’re doing in providing transit is serving disproportionately low-income communities of color with more limited mobility options, but giving them vast mobility to this region,” Lawson said.
The project is intended to boost economic development by creating an estimated 10,000 jobs during construction and an additional 2,500 jobs through operations.
New York-based insurance service provider MetLife Investment Management is providing the exclusive capital means for the project and will be its owner upon completion.
Project impact
As Metro already owns the land, no businesses or residential units are expected to be displaced as a result of the new development. Instead, much of the project’s impact is measured in environmental and community concerns.
Rendering: District NoHo’s design attempts to further a move to transit-oriented communities.
According to an environmental impact report analyzed by Los Angeles City Planning, the project would result in a number of significant and unavoidable project-level impacts, related to “air quality, historic resources, on-site construction noise, off-site construction noise, on-site construction vibration and off-site construction vibration.”
All other potential impacts would be less than significant or mitigated to less-than-significant levels, reads the report.
“The people who complain about revitalizing an area don’t want any change,” Stuart Waldman, president of the Valley Industry Commerce Association, said. “Improving an area that was downtrodden is a good thing. And the people that don’t think that, you’re never going to make them happy.”
The project received unanimous initial approval by city council members in December and is anticipating concurrence from the city attorney’s office.
If all goes well, construction is expected to begin mid-next year and will be developed over the course of 10 years, with assets opening in up to six phases. Affordable housing units will be built with priority, with the district’s first mixed-income project expected to follow in 2026.
“I think it’s going to help reshape our city because it’s going to prove that developing and putting density at transit is the right thing to do,” Verabian said. “And that density and active public spaces aren’t something we should fear, but we should strive for.”
The Woodland Hills-based bankruptcy and insolvency boutique law firm, which has outposts in Las Vegas and Denver, bolstered its bankruptcy and corporate chops with a veteran hire late last year. And moving into this year, the firm aims to add to its Woodland Hills home, as well as its Denver operation.
“The firm had another good year last year and we expect even better this year. We’re hoping to grow,” managing partner Steve Gubner said. “We’re actively looking for another associate right now and will hopefully have one by the end of the first quarter.”
Last year, BG Law was ranked No. 19 by attorney headcount on the San Fernando Valley Business Journal’s list of law firms.
The firm’s newest addition, partner David Poitras, brought decades of experience. He most recently was general counsel for Redondo Beach-based Wedgewood LLC – a network of real estate and real estate loan companies – where he managed a team covering 20 states. Prior to that, he was a partner at Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell LLP in Century City.
“I strongly believe my joining BG Law will be a win-win for me and the firm, and I look forward to getting back to private practice and its challenges,” Poitras said.
Gubner said he’s known Poitras for 30 years and added that he’d been trying to recruit Poitras since his Jeffer Mangels days, and in particular values his ability to manage a large number of people working on a multitude of cases. In his career, Poitras has managed numerous nine-figure insolvency cases – a strong resume to bring to an insolvency boutique.
“He has the patience of Job and the ability to manage multiple matters and pieces of cases simultaneously,” Gubner added.
In another recent win for the firm, partner Jessica Bagdanov was selected for the American Bankruptcy Institute’s 40 Under 40 class for 2023.
