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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Tilemaker Settles In With Build-to-Suit Offices

Luxury stone and tile maker Walker & Zanger Inc. has struck a deal to lease a built-to-suit headquarters in North Hills. The company will move from its current home in Sun Valley when the 126,000-square-foot facility at 16719 Schoenborn St. is complete in the fall of 2015. The 10-year-lease with landlord and developer Geringer Capital of Beverly Hills is valued at roughly $14.7 million, or roughly 97 cents a square foot per month. As might be expected, that’s significantly higher than the 56 cents average in the first quarter for the Central San Fernando Valley, according to the L.A. office of Colliers International. Pat Petrocelli, chief operating officer at Walker Zanger, said the facility will help keep the company in line with client expectations. “We’ve been looking to relocate from Sun Valley for some time. It’s just not the environment it was when we moved in 1989,” he said. Petrocelli said the company has spent the last several months working on interior design, including reinforced concrete beams as high as 30 feet and a showroom. Walker Zanger has been in business for more than 60 years and supplies stone and tile for both residential and commercial development. In 1997, the firm hit jackpot, supplying all the stone and tile in guest rooms and common areas for the ritzy Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas. More recently, the company has worked on a Viceroy hotel on Anguilla, a Carribbean island. It has 15 showrooms in seven states and more than 200 dealers. J.D. DeRosa, vice president at the downtown L.A. office of Transwestern, represented Walker Zanger. He said he spent several years looking for a new space in the San Fernando Valley, from Chatsworth to Glendale. “The existing location is across the street from a cement plant. It wasn’t exactly ideal,” he said. Petrocelli said the building is expected to break ground in September. Geringer did not return calls seeking comment. Upscale Urban A residential broker in Sherman Oaks has some high-end development plans for the Valley. Ben Salem, who works at the Sherman Oaks office of Rodeo Realty Inc., recently broke ground on what will be the first of three upscale multifamily projects. The Weddington Villas, a seven-unit townhome complex on Sepulveda Boulevard near the Sherman Oaks Galleria, will feature 2,000-square-foot units with steel framing and top-shelf amenities. “We want to do something that’s never been done in the Valley before,” Salem said. “This is going to be super sexy and sort of New York. Elevators going directly into the buildings, terraces on the roof, a lot of exposed steel – something very young and hip.” The project should be completed in November and units will be priced between $700,000 and $800,000. In addition, Salem and his partners, a friend from middle school and his dad, will soon break ground on two other projects: Hermitage Town Homes, a five-unit development of 2,000-square-foot townhomes in Valley Village; and the Coldwater Villas in Studio City, an eight-unit complex of 1,600-square-foot condos. Salem said units in Valley Village will price at about $600,000 while the Studio City units will price significantly higher – at up to $900,000 for the penthouse properties, which will feature private rooftop decks. Industrial Condos An 8-acre industrial park will be coming to the Conejo Valley. Conejo Merchant Ltd., a joint venture of Martin Teitelbaum, principal at Teitelbaum Construction Inc. of Camarillo, and Hugh Cassar, chief executive of Kretek International Inc., a Moorpark firm that distributes tobacco products, has purchased a vacant lot from the city of Thousand Oaks for $1.9 million. The city had spent about two decades trying to make affordable housing pencil out at the Conejo Center Drive and Conejo Spectrum Street site before giving up in September. The buyers plan to build about 75,000 square feet of industrial space comprising seven buildings ranging from 4,000 square feet to 8,000 square feet and commercial condominiums ranging from about 1,800 square feet to 3,000 square feet. The market could use the space. According to the L.A. office of Colliers, the industrial vacancy rate in the Conejo Valley was at 1.4 percent – the lowest in the region. Mike Tingus, president at the L.A. North/ Ventura office of Lee & Associates, who represented both the buyer and the seller, said the construction is long overdue. “It’s been 25 years since there has been new, smaller-sized industrial development in this market,” he said. Grant Fulkerson, principal at the L.A. North/ Ventura office of Lee, also represented both sides. Staff Reporter Elliot Golan can be reached at (818) 316-3123 or [email protected].

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