After Decade-Long Delay, Courthouse Will Get Built.

IT took 10 years, but Antelope Valley is finally getting its courthouse.

Century City-based MBK Southern California Ltd. has been awarded an $80 million contract to build the new L.A. County facility in Lancaster.

The company was selected by county officials to develop the project after handling related design services and overseeing the planning process, said Andrew Trachman, president of MBK Southern California, a subsidiary of MBK Real Estate Ltd., a Mitsui & Co. Ltd. company.

MBK first agreed to do the project a decade ago, before the recession hit and budgetary belt-tightening put the kibosh on plans to build the courthouse.

At the time, the firm was named Birtcher Co. In 1990 Mitsui & Co. acquired a 50 percent ownership stake in the company. That ownership had increased to 100 percent by 1995 when the name was changed to MBK.

"We were the company that the county had do the initial work," said Trachman. "At the point that the county restarted the project, they continued with us throughout the design."

Though the contract gathered dust for a decade, the scope of the project has not changed substantially.

"It's fairly similar," Trachman said. "The department's needs changed, but the overall scope of the project is not significantly different... That's why 15 of the courtrooms are being built, yet there's room for six additional courtrooms."

The courthouse will take more than two years to complete and will be approximately 370,000 square feet in size. The four-story structure will include 15 courtrooms with the capacity to expand to 21. It will have 1,100 surface parking spaces and will house offices for the District Attorney's Office, public defenders, probation officials and the local offices of the L.A. County Sheriffs Department.

The architectural firm on the project was Pasadena-based Mosakowski, Lindsay and Associates, which also designed courthouse projects in the Los Angeles International Air port and LAX areas.

MBK works largely in the retail sector, with its most recent project being SLO Promenade, a 250,000-square-foot retail project in San Luis Obispo.

Until the courthouse is built, residents in the Antelope Valley must still go to court in San Fernando or Van Nuys, said Lori Howard. acting chief deputy for Supervisor Michael Antonovich, who represents the area.

Pasadena Medical Project

Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena has selected L.A.-based Held Properties Inc. to develop a four-acre parcel adjacent to the hospital.

The site, at the southwest corner of West California Boulevard and Fair Oaks Avenue, is south of the popular Old Pasadena shopping area and adjacent to the hospital property.

Hospital officials plan to have the site developed -- under a ground-lease -- into medical offices, ambulatory or therapy facilities, laboratory space, extended-stay hospital space, and other uses. The hospital is seeking uses compatible with the hospital, but not necessarily directly tied to its operations.

The hospital has assembled the parcel over a period of years and wants to create value on that property; said Calvin Hollis, managing principal at Keyser Marston Associates Inc., which is advising the hospital on the project.

The hospital and Held Properties are now in negotiations over the terms of the project.

The site is in an area that the city is eager to see put to biotech uses, especially for laboratories. A specific plan is in place that encourages such uses.

The site is currently occupied by a drug store, liquor store and a former United Parcel Service dispatch center.

Held Properties apparently made a strong case for the project in beating out other developers by emphasizing that it had handled similar projects in the past.

Held Properties completed a seven-story, 150,000-square-foot building and a six-story, 335,000-square-foot facility at UCLA Medical Plaza in 1993. The seven-story building, like the envisioned Pasadena project, was on a ground-lease and included a pharmacy, restaurant and an MRI center on the first floor, and private centers, doctors' offices and laboratories above.

Fund Sells Off Properties

In an $18 million transaction, a 142,000-square-foot office/industrial facility that serves as the regional offices for the American Association of Retired Persons has been sold to a private investment group.

The property sold for more than $18 million to Lakewood California Investors. The seller was MRES America Fund 88-II.

The fund has also divested itself of the Granary Square Shopping Center in Valencia, selling the 136,924-square-foot shopping center to Pan Pacific Retail Properties Inc. for $18.3 million.

AARP's western regional office is located near Long Beach Airport at Carson Street and Watson Plaza Drive. An 85,000-square-foot, three-story office building houses AARP member services and administration units, and a 57,000-square-foot industrial component serves as the mailing operations center for AARP nationwide.

The grocery store-anchored Granary Square Shopping Center in Valencia was built in 1982 and is located on a 14-acre parcel on McBean Parkway. Major tenants include Ralphs and a branch of Washington Mutual.

In both the Long Beach and Valencia transactions, Charles Dunn Co.'s David Elliott from the Orange County office and David Parker from the downtown L.A. office negotiated on behalf of the seller. In both transactions, Elliott also represented the buyer.

Eyeing Long Beach

Encouraged by strong office absorption rates and declining vacancy rates in the South Bay, Arden Realty Inc. is seeking a major tenant for a six-story, 180,000-square-foot office building it wants to construct in the Long Beach Airport Business Park.

The building would go up at the corner of Clark and Spring streets.

The company does not plan to break ground on the building until a major tenant has been signed. The company is seeking a single tenant to lease the entire building, but would go forward with a major tenant who might not lease all the space, said Bart Porter, senior vice president of construction and development at Arden.

Arden Realty has recruited Grubb & Ellis Co. to pre-lease the proposed building.