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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

Woodland Hills Development Opportunity on Block

A boarded-up office building sandwiched between the glossy glass high-rises of Warner Center may finally be coming down. The owners of the building at 6150 Canoga Ave. have hung a for-sale sign on the property, which is actually entitled for a much larger facility than the 38,000-square-foot garden office building that now sits on the site. “The lot is zoned for a building four times as big and it can go up to nine stories,” said Dick Aronoff, a co-owner and manager of the project. The building, which was badly damaged and made uninhabitable by the Northridge earthquake, was due to be renovated, but a dispute with the insurance company delayed the project. Ultimately, Aronoff and the other investors figured it made more sense to demolish the building and construct a facility of 150,000 square feet. At that point, the owners decided to sell rather than invest in the new development themselves. “Realistically, it’s a $20 million construction project,” said Aronoff. “I’m not a developer at the level that I want to take that risk, so the logical choice is to sell it to someone who does.” Aronoff said that over the past two years he has received over 100 unsolicited offers on the property, ranging from $4 million in 1998 to $4.25 million most recently, although he did not follow up on any of the offers. He has not set an asking price, but expects future bids to be higher than those he has received so far. The investors have hired Don Manning, a broker with CB Richard Ellis Inc., to represent the property. Aronoff plans to market the site to corporate users as well as developers. Homestore Goes All the Way Homestore.com, an online real estate brokerage, has been shopping the Conejo Valley real estate market for two years, adding bits and pieces of space as the company has grown. It seems that its latest deal would satisfy even the most rapidly growing company for awhile. Homestore.com has leased a 137,000-square-foot office facility in the Westlake North Business Park, sources said. The company will relocate its corporate headquarters to the new facility, which is located in a 326,400-square-foot business campus currently under construction. Developer of the campus is Investment Development Services. Homestore, which has been located at 225 W. Hillcrest Drive in Thousand Oaks, has expanded its offices three times since it moved there in December 1998. Sources said Homestore will retain some of its Thousand Oaks space and sublet the rest when it moves to Westlake Village. Conexant Expands Conexant has leased a 60,000-square-foot facility in Newbury Park to accommodate the company’s expansion. Conexant, which makes semiconductors for the wireless communications industry, will use the facility at 649 Lawrence Drive to house its engineering staff. The company, which was spun off from Rockwell Semiconductor Systems in January 1999, has been expanding its facilities over the past five years to make room for its growing manufacturing operation. The engineering facility is the latest in a series of deals designed to move all non-manufacturing services out of the company’s main plant, also in Newbury Park. Conexant last summer leased a 50,000-square-foot facility at 730 Lawrence Drive to add to its manufacturing and testing space. The $1.4 billion company with headquarters in Newport Beach now has four locations in the Newbury Park area. John DeGrinis and Mike Tingus at Colliers Seeley represented Conexant in the deal. Ken Ashen and Nick Gregg of CB Richard Ellis represented the landlord of the 649 Lawrence Drive site, Realty Bancorp Equities. Camarillo or Bust Megaware Inc. of California, a West Los Angeles distributor of containers, is relocating to Camarillo. The company has leased a 32,110-square-foot industrial building at 1230 Calle Suerte for its executive offices, warehousing and distribution operations. Tim Foutz of NAI Capital Commercial represented the landlord, George DeRado, in the transaction, valued at $1.1 million over five years. Extreme Move Extreme Networks Inc., a computer networking systems firm, has leased 10,027 square feet of space at North Ranch Corporate Center in Westlake Village. The company will be relocating its corporate offices from Agoura Hills. Corbett Richmond and Cheryl Richmond of NAI Capital Commercial represented the landlord, Scheu Development Co. Tom Specker of Charles Dunn & Associates represented the tenant. Canoga Park Lease Eggology Inc., a maker of egg-white-based food products, leased a 6,600-square-foot manufacturing facility in Canoga Park to expand its operation. Ron Feder at R.J. Feder & Associates represented Eggology in the transaction, valued at $193,000 over three years. Wired in Valencia Newhall Land and Farming Co. has reached an agreement with SBC Communications Inc. to wire all of the residential and commercial properties in Valencia with high-speed direct Internet access. Under the agreement, SBC’s subsidiary, Pacific Bell, will install the DSL service to more than 30,000 homes and thousands of businesses by the end of this year. About 70 percent of the community currently has DSL access, the companies said. Staff reporter Shelly Garcia can be reached at (818) 710-2731, ext. 4316, or at [email protected].

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