2,500 Apartment Units Get Underway in Warner Center By SHELLY GARCIA Senior Reporter Over the past 25 years, Warner Center has become a prime business address. Now the area is about to become a tony residential neighborhood for renters. Two new luxury apartment projects about to get underway would add 1,300 rental units to Warner Center. Along with three other projects in various stages of development, the neighborhood is expected to add more than 2,500 new apartment units, all at the top end of the rental range, in coming years. In all the cases the new apartment construction will replace commercial buildings, many of which date back more than 25 years to a time when it was still a risky proposition for a business to locate so far to the western end of the San Fernando Valley. “The Warner Center Specific Plan was deliberately designed to encourage residential use in the area, and that’s what’s happening now,” said Brad Rosenheim, principal at Rosenheim & Associates, a lobbying and land use consultant in Warner Center. “The idea was to create more of a jobs, housing balance.” Pacific Properties LLC, a privately held company based in Las Vegas, is beginning the permitting process for its first Los Angeles-area project, a 522-unit apartment complex on a 10.7-acre parcel where eight low-rise industrial buildings now stand between Variel Street and DeSoto Avenue. The company has already met with residents and with the Woodland Hills/Warner Center Neighborhood Council and hopes to break ground by the end of next year. Weintraub Investments, which acquired a property that now houses Panavision’s headquarters at 6219 DeSoto Ave., is also planning to construct a housing complex that would include more than 850 units plus a residence for active seniors, according to documents filed with the Los Angeles Planning Department. The timing on that project is less clear. Weintraub officials declined to be interviewed for this story, but Panavision, which has occupied the site since 1996, has about seven years remaining on its lease, and it’s not known whether the developer will move to expedite Panavision’s departure. Panavision, which has been entangled in financial woes for several years, declined to comment on its plans, but some believe that the company may well welcome the opportunity to break its lease for a smaller facility elsewhere. The newcomers will join two other developers that have begun to build multifamily projects in the area. Archstone Communities, a unit of Archstone-Smith, is planning to construct a 522-unit residential complex at the site of the former Ray-Art Studios in Canoga Park. Second development Morgan Group, which is completing a 130-unit apartment complex at 6150 Canoga Avenue where an office building once stood, is also moving forward with a second development of 563 units at 6200 and 6250 Canoga Ave, The Plaza at Warner Center. That project will also be constructed on the 11-acre site of what is currently an office building. Morgan, which has just finished its traffic study, anticipates breaking ground in late summer of next year, said Derek Empey, vice president of development for the company. What has made residential developers stand up and take notice of Warner Center after all these years? “The biggest attraction is that there are 45,000 jobs and 8 million to 9 million square feet of office space,” said Randall Reel, senior vice president for Pacific Properties. “There’s a severe imbalance of jobs to homes, and it’s such a nice area.” All told, Warner Center has more than 16 million square feet of commercial space, and Reel said that since 1997, the area has added a mere 775 units of apartments. Using the generally accepted formula for housing development one-and one half jobs to one home Reel said the area can support over 8,000 additional living units. “The specific plan in and of itself calls for 3,000 additional units of housing, of which all these new projects will not fill, so we’re not really even touching on what the specific plan mentions.” At the same time, land costs have increased substantially since Warner Center first was developed, and many of the older commercial buildings now standing are significantly underutilized based on the updated land values. The moves come after years of focus almost exclusively on office development in the Warner Center area. Although city officials early on foresaw the creation of a self-contained community offering housing and jobs in close proximity, developers have only recently begun to exploit the potential for residential use. Housing shortage Through the 1980s and 1990s the seemingly bottomless demand for commercial space took first priority on developers’ agendas. But in recent years the demand for office space has virtually disappeared, and a severe housing shortage has ensued. That, along with currently low interest rates, has helped encourage developers to come to Warner Center, where there is still land available for building. “The confluence of several factors, low interest rates, increased demand for housing and the increased profile of Warner Center as a residential address, are all contributing to the shift in direction,” said Rosenheim. The projects are all planned as high-end apartments. The Pacific Properties complex, which has not yet been named, will have 12 separate clusters of apartments situated around their own courtyard areas with fountains, seating and other landscaping. Although the project is still in very early phases of design, Reel said he expects the units to have high ceilings, granite kitchen counters and detailed molding, and the complex will include swimming pools, a gym and a community room. “We’re also building a much lower density than is allowed for,” said Reel. “We could easily build over 600 units but we’d rather make the project more palatable from a marketing standpoint.” Although the company is not required to gather community input, because the current zoning allows for the project as envisioned, Reel said Pacific Properties is hoping to work with the Neighborhood Council and other community groups to gather feedback and garner support for the complex. Rentals for all of the projects, at least as now planned, will fall in the $2 per square foot range, which roughly translates to $1,500 to $3000 for a one-bedroom to two-bedroom unit.
