Archstone adds to Westside holdings with Marina deal.

The 623-unit Kingswood Village Marina in Marina del Rey has been sold for $87 million to Archstone-Smith Trust, the fourth Westside purchase by the Englewood, Colo.-based REIT in less than a year.

Archstone-Smith paid about $140,000 a unit to an entity that includes the estate of late actor Charles Bronson for the complex at 4157 Via Marina. The property is subject to a long-term ground lease with Los Angeles County and includes seven low-rise buildings and one 13-story towel'.

As part of the county program that offers ground lease extensions to investors willing to upgrade Marina del Rey properties, the county agreed to extend the ground lease termination date to 2046 from 2026. In turn, Archstone will invest more than $25 million in upgrades.

"It took 18 months to negotiate the lease extension," said John Whitmire, acquisitions director for Bel-Air Capital, who represented both sides of the deal. "As part of the negotiation of the lease extension, Archstone agreed to do substantial capital improvements to the project."

Last April, Archstone-Smith bought three Santa Monica complexes totaling 229 units for a combined $57.5 million. In all, the company owns about 3,400 units in greater Los Angeles.

The seller was Kingswood Village Marina Ltd., which developed the property in the early '70s.

School's In?

The Los Angeles Unified School District has made an offer to purchase a 23-acre vacant parcel adjacent to Glassell Park from a joint venture of Legacy Partners and AMB Property Corp.

The site, part of Taylor Yards, is southwest of the intersection of San Fernando Road and Division Street.

Legacy and AMB, which jointly developed the seven-building Los Angeles Media Tech Center northwest of the parcel in 2001, had planned to develop the site. The partners sold a package of four of the buildings to an entity backed by San Diego investor Harold Elkan last year for $28.7 million.

Edwin Van Ginkel, LAUSD's senior development manager, said the recent availability of funds allowed the district to make a play for the site, which would help alleviate overcrowding in nearby schools.

"We have 2,500 high school seats we need to build in some configuration," said Van Ginkel, who would not disclose the amount of the offer. "The site has been suggested to the district for a number of years but we didn't pursue it earlier because we didn't have any funded seats."

Van Ginkel did not give a time frame on when the deal could close. Officials from Legacy did not return calls. AMB declined comment.

Deal Duo in Tri-Cities

Two media companies have signed deals to relocate to the Tri-Cities in leases worth about a combined $7 million.

Deluxe Media Services has signed a five-year lease for 33,000 square feet at Burbank Empire Center in a deal worth more than $4.5 million. The DVD maker, which signed a $6 million deal in the Santa Clarita Valley last year for its manufacturing operations, is the inaugural tenant for the three-year-old building developed by Menlo Equities and will get signage rights atop the four-story building, said Nico Vilgiate, vice president at CB Richard Ellis, who represented the tenant.

"Burbank was an area that was important to Deluxe because of its proximity to its studio clients," said Vilgiate. "They secured favorable expansion rights and are likely to expand by a half- to a full-floor by summer."

Studley's Paul Stockwell represented the landlord.

Meanwhile, in Glendale, Azteca America Inc., which operates Spanish-language KAZA (Channel 54), is taking the 18,000-square-foot building at 1139 Grand Central Ave. in a 10-year deal. The building, owned by Walt Disney Co., had been previously occupied by Telemundo.

"They felt comfortable that they could get (antenna) approvals since Telemundo had the same setup," said Allen Hubsch, real estate attorney at Hogan & Hartson LLP, who represented the tenant. "It was a good fit."

Disney was represented internally.

The deals mark continued activity for the area. In the fourth quarter, the Tri-Cities vacancy rate was 12 percent, down from 15.5 percent for the year-earlier quarter, according to Grubb & Ellis Co.

Then There Were None

All five senior brokers at Insignia/ESG Inc.'s Westside office have left CB Richard Ellis, which acquired Insignia parent Insignia Financial Group Inc. last July.

Craig Meyer and Steve Solomon have joined Trammell Crow Co. to head its office leasing and investment brokerage operations for the south Westside and South Bay markets. Meyer and Solomon had joined Insignia in 2002 after more than a decade each with Colliers Seeley.

"It's very similar to the Insignia mold," said Solomon, noting the extensive broker coverage by CB in the South Bay and Westside. "It's not going to be a 50-person office."

Earlier this month, Hunt Barnett, Rick Buckley and Chris Houge, the other three Westside brokers who joined CB when the Insignia merger was completed, moved to Madison Partners. Former Insignia and CB Richard Ellis Executive Vice President Robert Shibuya joined Trammell Crow as executive director last October.

Staff reporter Danny King can be reached at [phone] ext. 230, or at [e-mail].