About a year ago, the owners of a 24-acre parcel in Van Nuys waged a heated battle with the California Department of Toxic Substances Control over developing the site. It was worth the fight. So strong is demand for industrial property in the area that just months after getting a go-ahead from the DTSC, the two buildings that now stand on the property have been leased. Enson Inc., a start-up Internet company that makes and sells children’s clothing, and Capstone Turbine Corp., a maker of microturbine systems for manufacturing, have signed leases at the Airport Business Park, under development by Trammell Crow Co. Enson will occupy a 108,162-square-foot building on the property and Capstone Turbine has signed a lease for about 100,000 square feet. The Business Park, formerly occupied by aerospace firm Marquardt Co., has been years in redevelopment because defense manufacturing on the site left behind industrial solvents, some of which are believed to cause cancers in rats. Despite extensive clean-up efforts by the seller, Lancaster, Penn.-based Ferranti International Inc., and a recommendation for approval by the Los Angeles Planning Department, the DTSC was unwilling to green light the property. But now, with the dispute finally settled, the property this summer was sold to AMB Property Co., which partnered with Trammell Crow to refurbish the existing buildings and develop the remaining land. Five additional buildings are planned for the site, which will include a total of 680,000 square feet of industrial space when it is completed. “It’s a great property,” said Mark Leonard, a principal with Trammell Crow. “Hopefully, we’ll have the five new buildings leased before they’re completed next April.” Leonard said the company used its own in-house environmental group to navigate the approval process. “They were able to understand the environmental condition and move the project through to construction,” Leonard said. With industrial vacancies in the San Fernando Valley at under 5 percent, developers and tenants were eagerly awaiting the redevelopment of the airport property at Saticoy Street and Hayvenhurst Avenue. “We got to a point in this lease negotiation where the landlord said we’ve got a backup, they’re ready to step up and take this space if you guys don’t do it,” said David Kimball, associate director at brokerage Julien J. Studley Inc., which represented Enson. “At that point we got the lease signed.” The five-year Enson lease is valued at about $4 million. Enson had been working out of a 14,000-square-foot headquarters space in Alhambra and began looking for new office space because its lease was expiring. The company intended to lease separate warehouse and distribution facilities when its Web site launches later this year. But the airport park property offered Enson the opportunity to combine its office and warehousing functions under one roof. “The whole office environment is tight as a drum,” said Kimball. “The space afforded us the ability to not only do a substantial warehouse but to do a substantial office build-out as well.”
