Five of L.A.'s Most Popular Buildings for Tech Tenants.

For high-tech firms looking to get off the ground, finding office space is almost as important as attracting venture capital.

One Wilshire

There are many implications in where a virtual business is located, from bandwidth potential, to the image it provides, to its ability to attract new-media workers. Here is a selection of some of L.A.'s most popular buildings among high-tech tenants.

WHILE many of downtown's trophy towers gather dust, others are scrambling to fill the needs of a new breed of tenant: dot-coms and telecoms.

Telecommunication firm like to be clustered to cover gaps in their service, and One Wilshire has the required infrastructure -- in part because it long has been home to such companies. As a result, the 31-story building at 624 S. Grand Ave. downtown is fully leased, and its popularity is spilling over to nearby properties, many of which are now filling up with telecom users.

The real attraction of One Wilshire and its neighbors isn't high-tech infrastructure - after all, most were built long before high-speed data networks existed. Rather, telecom firms are looking for large amounts of available space at low rents. Much of One Wilshire is jammed with switching equipment rather than people, so it's no longer a traditional office building at all.

Santa Monica Business Park

TENANTS such as Cooking.com and Stamps.com began flocking to the Ocean Park Boulevard address after Internet titan eToys Inc. moved there in the summer of 1998, taking 12,000 square feet. Now the firm occupies 150,000 square feet.

Good parking, accessibility to restaurants and a low-rise environment are the plusses these startups found irresistible. They also like the Westside location, which helps lure tech employees.

But the center didn't set out to be a new-media magnet. "It's really an accident and coincidence that these properties had features that young Internet firms wanted," said Matthew Miller, a principal at Brentwoodbased brokerage Cresa Partners. "What people like about it is that it's plug and play. It's got the right layout, A/C, electricity and cable to service their needs."

Developed in the late 1970s by Transpacific Development Co., the business park was purchased by Menlo-Park-based Spieker Properties in February 1998. It encompasses just under 1 million square feet of space, consisting of 13 low-rise office buildings and six retail structures including banks and restaurants.

Spieker embarked on a two-year refurbishment last summer to build outdoor plazas, paseos, courtyards and additional trees, as well as updated signage. The $6.5 million investment includes a newly built, 10,000-square-foot conference center, complete with training rooms and a board room.

The park has filled up even as newer projects are built in the Westside area, including Spieker's $30 million Arboretum Courtyard completed six months ago. The business park is at 99 percent occupancy.

AT&T Wireless Headquarters

LOCATED on Park Plaza Drive in the Cerritos Towne Center, the seven-story, 225 ,000-square-foot structure provides wireless connectivity for about 800 employees in every area of the building, including hallways and elevators.

Low-powered antennas are installed throughout. To assure constant connectivity, the building is fed with double redundancies. meaning that one system will kick in if the other shuts down. Employees can go online without a hard fiber connection through a software program that enables laptop users to attach an antenna to the computer and log onto the Internet.

"You can be mobile and more transitory vs. being tied to your desk," said Rich Grimes, AT&T' s director of wireless network services.

Developed by CommonWealth Partners, the $60 million facility also has environment-friendly features such as carpet made from recycled fibers and high-efficiency glass to lower heating and cooling bills. In addition, the building's mechanical, electrical and plumbing structure has separate temperature controls so when one part of the building is shut down, people and equipment can still work in others.

The Marina Towers

WHEN the Internet business was in its infancy, two structures stood at the forefront -- and they still do. The Marina Towers on Admiralty Way in Marina del Rey have an assortment of new high-tech firms, including Digilink BrandX Internet and SoftAware Co. Together, the buildings contain 350,000 square feet and are about 92 percent full, according to owner TrizecHahn Office Properties.

From the outside, the black-and-white striped structures are nondescript, but it's the underground part that counts.

In 1993, GTE California Inc. installed fiber-optic connections as part of the phone company's SmartPark program. Under SmartPark, buildings or entire office complexes are equipped with cables providing virtually unlimited bandwidth, with ring transport systems that provide alternate routes and redundant equipment so communication will still be possible after a disaster. The towers were the first buildings in the United States to have a fiber-optic ring.

One tenant, the USC Information Sciences Institute, was a key player in the research that would lead to the Internet. Today, it maintains the Los Nettos network, the primary data hub for Los Angeles Internet traffic - meaning that local Internet service providers get access to the Internet by hooking up to the institute.

The robust connectivity prompted business Internet service provider SoftAware to move in five years ago.

"We have seven to eight connections through different carriers, so if one carrier goes down -- which happens daily -- we could reroute traffic and stay connected for our customers," said co-founder Rei Yoshioka.

THE seven-building campus in Calabasas boasts a 95 percent occupancy rate with monthly rental rates north of $2 a square foot per month, often more than its neighbors in the 20-mile Tech Corridor running from Calabasas to Newbeny Park. The site's high-tech roster includes XYlan Corp., Malibu Networks, ACT Networks, IXIA Communications and ASPengines.com.

Corporate Center at Malibu Canyon

Built 10 years ago for $55 million, the multi-phase, low-rise office complex is among the few in the area offering connectivity between buildings. Essentially, a company in one building can expand to another and create an instant phone and data connection between the two offices. In addition, all the buildings have antennas that can provide wireless connectivity.

The area's periphery is also a major draw. Companies cite the quality of life factor in the Conejo Valley, which attracts a strong talent pool.

"There's a very good concentration of employees in the area that we can draw from by being centered here," said Shaun Manesh, chief operating officer of Malibu Networks.

Flexibility A Priority

FOR high-flying companies that need to assemble work teams quickly, space needs can ramp up or down in a matter of hours.

That's the case with El Segundo-based Infonet Services Carp., a global data services company that moved into a build-to-suit, $25 million facility in December. You could call it the Lego office.

Developed by Kearney Real Estate Co., a division of Morgan Stanley Real Estate Fund, the 156,000-square-foot, T-shaped structure boasts lots of glass and aluminum detailing on the outside, giving it a futurist finish compared with its more boxy neighbors at the Grand Avenue Business Park.

The modernism is carried inside, where conventional surfaces are not what they appear to be and often serve dual purposes.

For starters, the double-sided walls are actually de-mountable partitions. Unlike drywall, the five-foot metal-framed panels are covered in fabric and can be removed and relocated to cordon off space elsewhere in the facility.

Rather than installing a logjam of wires in the walls, which causes problems when reconfiguring space, Infonet decided to run everything below the floors to connect the 500 workstations. Except for the lobby and bathrooms, each of the three stories has an 18-inch base to accommodate heating, air conditioning and electrical hardware.

An air vent is located under each desk and employees can use a lever to adjust the volume of air pressure. To. provide power, electrical wiring runs to each station from a main distribution box on each floor. To make new connections, all that's needed is to drill a hole in the floor panel.

"If they want to rearrange people, all they have to do is plug the hole, find a new space and set up shop," said Jack Hileman,. president of Westwood-based Hileman Co., the development manager of the project.

Some 105 mini-antennas are set up throughout the building to accommodate the cell phones used by employees. 'People can work around the office without feeling trapped at a desk and not miss a call," said Dick O'Reilly, Infonet's director of administrative services.

Another benefit is lots of natural light. Without overhead ducts or drop ceilings, all that's seenon the underside of floors are exposed steel beams painted white that help add indirect lighting.

Infonet, which has $300 million in annual revenues and provides voice and data networking services for companies with overseas operations, requires constant connectivity. To ensure 24-hour operation, the building has redundant back-up systems, such as dual power and telephone feeds.

Along with the obvious high-tech features, the building has a cafeteria, dining patio, showers and lockers for people who bike or walk to work, and outside stations to charge electric vehicles.

"The feedback from our employees has been very positive about this building," O'Reilly said. "They haven't worked in an environment like this."