82.1 F
San Fernando
Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Property Swap Brings Gelb to Warner Center

Valley real estate veteran Rickey Gelb’s long-time wish has come true: owning a building in Woodland Hills’s prominent Warner Center. Last month, Gelb, the managing general partner of the property management and development firm he founded, Gelb Group, bought a 108,000-square-foot office building at 6200 Canoga Ave. in Woodland Hills for $22 million from Canoga Center Holdings. Gelb intends to move his company and about 16 employees there once it finishes constructing new offices on the second floor, scheduled to end by April. Despite what Gelb’s daughter called a penchant for holding properties long-term, her father wanted the Warner Center building enough to sell an 8-acre shopping center at 16201 to 16269 San Fernando Mission Blvd. in Granada Hills for $23 million to Harridge Development Group of Los Angeles. He traded the shopping center for the Warner Center building through a 1031 exchange, a way for investors to defer paying capital gains tax on the sale of property. “Rickey always wanted to own a building in Warner Center,” said Lisa Gelb, vice president of leasing for the company. The company is currently in 4,000 square feet in an Encino building her father built and her mother, Robbi Gelb, was the general contractor on. But it’s now too small for the growing company, which does in-house maintenance of its buildings. Gelb is renovating the Warner Center building’s full floor so it can occupy 8,000 square feet and lease out the rest, Lisa said. The new headquarters will have creative office aspects with exposed ceilings, several gathering spots, an open kitchen and glass fronts and doors on individual offices. The building is currently 60 percent leased. According to California Realty Group in Santa Monica, which brokered the 1031 exchange deal for Gelb, Harridge plans to redevelop the Granada Hills shopping center into mixed-use with 440 apartments and 60,000 square feet of retail space. Industrial Relief A bit of relief is coming to the ultra-tight industrial market in the Central Valley. A nearly 100,000-square-foot, Class A industrial building has come onto the market in Van Nuys and is available for lease now that the tenant, Danmer Inc., which designs, makes and installs custom shutters, blinds and shades, has moved its manufacturing to Georgia, according to CBRE Group Inc. Senior Vice President David Harding. Harding is handling the leasing of 8000 Woodley Ave. in the Lewis Business Center. He said Danmer moved two to three months ago, and while it’s still using a small amount of space, it plans to leave as soon as a new tenant signs a lease. The building has been available for about a year, Harding said, because of its larger size and the longer lease term preferred by its owner, Prudential Insurance Co. of America, a unit of Prudential Financial Inc. in Newark, N.J. Lease rates are 89 cents a square foot, which are the average for the Central Valley, according to fourth-quarter data from Colliers International. “We have a smaller building market,” Harding said. “About 70 percent of tenants that exist in this market are in less than 30,000 square feet. This is almost 100,000 square feet. It’s not necessarily a challenge; it’s more about taking the time to find the right tenant. The owner is looking for that long- term deal – more like 10 years.” What the building has going for it is that out of all the industrial space in the market, only about 1 percent of it is available, he added. Additionally, the 1999-built warehouse has key features of newer buildings – 30-foot clear height ceilings, 14 dock-high and two ground-level loading doors, truck-turning radius outside and 164 parking spaces. It’s also in a business park that’s down the street from the 405 freeway. Prudential is also considering subdividing it to just over 54,000 square feet as an alternative. Moving Up Lee & Associates Pasadena said John Berger has joined the office as a founding principal. For the past 10 years, Berger was senior vice president with Coldwell Banker Commercial Advisors. Before that, he was a financial advisor with Morgan Stanley and an investment advisor for the UBS Private Client Group. Calabasas’ Marcus & Millichap Inc. has named Dave Lincoln as senior vice president of investments for its Encino office. He was previously first vice president. Lincoln specializes in office and industrial properties. Also in Encino, the brokerage firm has promoted Earle Hyman to senior managing director of investments from his prior position as senior vice president. Staff Reporter Carol Lawrence can be reached at (818) 316-3123 or [email protected].

Featured Articles

Related Articles