LAND DEAL COULD BRING 1,000 JOBS.

Byline: Gregory J. Wilcox Staff Writer

VAN NUYS - In a deal that could create 1,000 jobs, the Genesis LA Real Estate Fund has lent $5.5 million to a development group that will build an industrial park on 18 acres of recycled aerospace sector land.

The money from the fund, managed by Burbank-based Shamrock Capital Advisors, enabled Nearon Enterprises to buy the land at Hayvenhurst Avenue and Saticoy Street that was once part of the Kaiser Marquardt Corp. complex.

The loan funded about half the purchase price, said Mark Ossola, Nearon's general partner in Southern California.

His group bought the land from Kaiser Marquardt Inc., which used to have a rocket engine unit based in Van Nuys. Primex Technologies bought Kaiser Marquardt in June 2000.

Nearon, based in Danville, will construct an eight-building complex totaling 343,000 square feet of space for light-industrial manufacturing.

Construction should start in this year's third quarter and the project will take about 10 months to build. The project's total cost is about $23 million.

The buildings will range in size from 30,000 square feet to 80,000 square feet and support a work force of 700 to 1,000 people when fully leased. That's about the same number of people employed there by Kaiser Marquardt at the height of the aerospace sector boom.

All parties will benefit from the redevelopment, Ossola said. His company makes some money, the city of Los Angeles benefits from the increased tax revenue and the community gets jobs.

``It's kind of an eyesore, with older dilapidated buildings, and there are no jobs left on the site anymore. It's a great location and the market is very strong for this type of use,'' he said.

The Genesis Fund targets projects in low to moderate-income neighborhoods of Los Angeles.

This site is near the intersection of Hayvenhurst and Saticoy at the western edge of Van Nuys Airport. It is adjacent to a 30-acre chunk of Kaiser Marquardt property that Ossola sold two years ago.

That parcel has 700,000 square feet of space and the final two leases could soon be signed, he said.

Joe Fahey, a director at Shamrock, said this is a good use of the fund's resources.

``This is an industrial site that is true urban in-fill, and that was what the fund was designed for,'' he said.

And the market is good, too.

``As much as we talk about how we're in recession, the industrial market in Los Angeles County is still phenomenal. The vacancy rates are in the 5 (percent) to 6 percent range,'' Fahey said.

Shamrock Capital Advisors is an affiliate of Burbank-based Shamrock Holdings of California, Inc., the investment arm of the Roy E. Disney family headquartered in Burbank.

The Genesis LA Real Estate Fund is the first private-sector financing vehicle that allows investors to make money while focusing on low- to moderate-income areas in the county.

CAPTION(S):

map

Map:

Proposed industrial park sight