High-flying hi-technology companies head west.

High-flying hi-technology companies head west

It offers prestige plus beaches, parks and bike paths

The West Los Angeles area, despite its high-rent reputation, is attracting a flock of high-technology companies.

Software developers are among the more eager high-tech companies that have plunked down in Santa Monica, Century City and West L.A. recently.

Some have sought locations that please employees, near beaches, parks and bike paths. Others have taken prestigious space that otherwise would more typically lease to a law firm. A few set up near their owners' homes.

Among software firms to lease offices recently on the Westside are Symantec Corp., Retix, Jasmine Multimedia Publishing and Quarterdeck Office Systems.

Officials of some of those companies said recent falling rental rates helped them secure more upscale space.

"Given the recession, we were very fortunate to have negotiated a very fine deal," said Retix President and CEO Steve Frankel. His company took 89,000 square feet for five years at Colorado Place in Santa Monica. He declined to name the price.

Previously, sources told the Business Journal the deal was worth an estimated $9 million -- a reputed bargain for Retix. The reason: much of the space had already been partially paid for under a lease buyout agreement between Tosco Corp. and Colorado Place's co-owners, Maguire Thomas Partners and IBM.

IBM is a major tenant there, possibly casting a blue-chip image on other high-tech newcomers. "I think Maguire likes to do business with the movers and shakers in the industry, and I'm very pleased they think that way about us," boasted Frankel, whose company posted sales totaling $52 million last year.

Retix, however, maintains manufacturing plants in Chatsworth and Mexicali, Mexico.

Also moving into Colorado Place, by late October, is Symantec Corp. It took 55,000 square feet for $7 million under a seven-year lease.

Moving Eastward, Jasmine Multimedia this year moved into 1888 Century Park East. "It's prestigious here, but not expensive," said Jasmine owner Jay Alan Samit, 31. His lease rate -- "just under $2 a square foot a month" -- may have benefitted from Century City building managers agreeing to renegotiate downward some tenants rates, he speculated. "There's a lot of vacant space on the Westside."

Samit moved from a San Fernando Valley location, where the firm was founded nine years ago. His 14 employees occupy 1,500 square feet now. "Between faxes and telephones and modems, we don't need as mush space as we did years ago," he said. Nearly half of his employees work at least one day a week at home, which can be quite feasible for software developers who need little more than a computer and phone lines.

Jasmine created software that controls the rides and lighting for a theme park in Tokyo named Puroland and another in Oita, Japan, named Harmonyland. It also creates interactive training videos for corporations.

Samit said his firm, a quasi-show-biz outfit, needs to impress clients. "In the Westside, it's easy for clients to fly into town, stay in nice hotels and dine in nice restaurants, as opposed to stranding them in some hotel in the Valley."

Proximity to Los Angeles International Airport means a lot to some.

"We do more than 60 percent of our business outside of the United States," said Retix President Frankel, who lives in Palos Verdes and makes about a dozen trips a year himself. The company has operating companies in Ireland and the U.K., plus sales and service outlets in France, Italy and Germany. Retix makes software and computer systems based on the Open Systems Interconnect networking standard.

Many Westside locals seem suited to software development, which relies on brains more than material.

"If you're some software hacker on a computer screen, and you want to take a soft drink out on the grass and sit in the sun, you can," said Colorado Place leasing agent Bob McNamara. "If you're in a highrise, jammed in another highrise, it's just not the same," said McNamara, whose "campus"-like development offers a 3.5 acre park, tennis and basketball courts, a gymnasium and restaurants. "It's good for creative people, not just in high-tech, who appreciate a fully self-contained environment."

Quarterdeck, which carried out its initial public offering last month, has a very "California" set-up just two blocks from the beach. Headquarters at 1901 Main St. in Santa Monica has a large balcony with lots of lawn furniture for lounging. Employees ride bicycles during lunch time on the bike path that stretches south along the beach 10 miles to Torrance. And employee training takes place in the artsy Edgemar retail center, designed by Frank Gehry. (Next door is the Santa Monica Museum of Art and a Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream store.)

Quarterdeck co-founder Terry Myers said her operations spread out among several buildings in Santa Monica and average $1.50 a square foot per month in rent. Like many software executives interviewed last month, Myers said her location choice was dependent on employee homes.

"All the (four) people who started the company lived on the Westside," she said. "We actually opened in a garage in the back of a beach house half a block from the beach."

Now, with 162 workers, home locations stretch from Thousand Oaks to Long Beach. Myers considers Santa Monica the most central location to them.

Longtime Westsider IDB Communications Group, a supplier of data-transmission services via satellite, chose its location on Washington Boulevard in West L.A. to be near its first client (a radio-programming company down the street) and to be near liberal financiers who appreciate the upstart nature of IDB, said spokesman Michael Teeling.

"The financial community generally tends to be more open to new ideas around here," he said.

The founders of IDB, which employs 150 today, left the East Coast in part looking for an open ear here, Teeling added.