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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

Cruise Line Drops Anchor in Bigger Office Space

Woodland Hills-based Viking Cruises is having a year of expansion. The company, known for its culturally rich river tours, launched its first ocean cruises after taking delivery of the Viking Star, its first ocean-faring ship, in March. And now, it is expanding the size of its corporate headquarters. Last month, the company announced it had sublet 6,500 additional square feet on the ground floor of its current building at 5700 Canoga Ave. in the LNR Warner Center complex. In addition, it took 32,000 square feet on the ground floor of an adjacent building in the same complex, at 21301 Burbank Blvd., said John Sabourin, president of commercial real estate brokerage Tenant Guardian in Newport Beach. He represented Viking in the lease negotiations opposite Todd Later of Hines, a Houston-based real estate investment and management firm. The new leases bring Viking’s total footprint to 110,000 square feet in two buildings. The company will devote most of the ground-floor space at 21301 Burbank to its call center operations, Sabourin said. Universal Music Group leases the remaining space in that building. “I am thrilled to be facilitating the growth of Viking Cruises,” said Sabourin, who started his real estate career in Warner Center and remembers working on the original leases at the LNR complex. While the West San Fernando Valley office market still struggles with negative absorption, he said, having large blocks of cheap space can be an advantage. “The deals we’re doing today are still the same as we were doing in 1990. When I think back, the asking rates then were $2.25 to $2.35 and now they’re $2.50 to $2.60. Adjusted for inflation, it’s still a very affordable market and very attractive for larger tenants,” he said. Airport Adjacent The Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority Commission has agreed to sell a 59-acre site adjacent to Burbank Bob Hope Airport to Overton Moore Properties of Gardena for $72.5 million. The land is one of the largest available transit-oriented development sites in Southern California, close to stations serving Metrolink, Amtrak and several bus lines as well as the proposed California High Speed Rail line. The airport authority acquired the land in 1999 as part of a 108-acre parcel previously owned by Lockheed Corp. It set aside 49 acres to use for a new terminal building and placed the remaining land into a trust. The authority and the city of Burbank agreed that the land held in trust would be sold off if the two sides did not come to an agreement on how to develop it by last March. Broker Matthew Hargrove of CBRE Inc. handled the sale agreement, which is subject to review by Bank of New York Mellon, trustee for the property. Overton has expressed a willingness to meet with the California High Speed Rail Authority regarding a potential station site and will work with Burbank city officials on the development of the parcel. Multifamily Plans An L.A. developer filed plans this month to turn a former Middle Eastern market in Van Nuys into a mixed-use apartment complex with 4,750 square feet of ground-floor retail space. The six-story complex, at 7111 N. Sepul-veda Blvd., would comprise 180 residential units, with 27 set aside for very-low income residents. In April, Blue Arch Investments Inc. purchased the 1.2-acre property, which once housed the Farmers Ranch Market, for $4.9 million, or about $419 a square foot, according to real estate data provider CoStar Group Inc. The developer is asking for two stories of subterranean parking on the site that would provide 327 vehicle and 204 bike spaces. The project will have to undergo a site-plan review by Los Angeles city planners for approval. School Acquisition Conejo Valley Unified School District has purchased two adjacent Newbury Park industrial buildings, totaling just under 50,000 square feet, where it plans to house its maintenance and operations department as well as administrative offices, a print lab and storage facilities. The district paid nearly $6.3 for the two buildings, at 750 Mitchell Road and 667 Rancho Conejo Blvd., over the summer. Although the properties face different streets, they are contiguous on the back end. The district had sold its previous maintenance and operations yard on Kelly Road in Thousand Oaks, according to real estate brokerage Lee & Associates. Mike Tingus and Grant Fulkerson, of Lee’s LA North/Ventura office, represented the district along with Joel Kirschenstein, of Sage Realty Group, a Westlake Village-based consulting firm specializing in surplus property, strategic asset management, land-use entitlements and government relations. Tingus and Fulkerson also represented the seller of 750 Mitchell, 3K Properties of Westlake Village. Bob Boyer and Michael Slater of CBRE represented the seller of the Rancho Conejo property, SIMA Rancho Conejo. Staff reporter Karen E. Klein can be reached at (818) 316-3123 or at [email protected].

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