LEADERS HOPE TO ATTRACT JOBS TO TIMES PLANT.Byline: Gregory J. Wilcox Staff Writer San Fernando Valley San Fernando Valley Valley, southern California, U.S. Northwest of central Los Angeles, the valley is bounded by the San Gabriel, Santa Susana, and Santa Monica mountains and the Simi Hills. business leaders and city officials, often at odds over development issues, are pledging a coordinated effort to attract high-paying jobs to the 26-acre Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times Morning daily newspaper. Established in 1881, it was purchased and incorporated in 1884 by Harrison Gray Otis (1837–1917) under The Times-Mirror Co. (the hyphen was later dropped from the name). printing facility that is closing early next year. While it's still early in the process, some business executives and city officials, including Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa Antonio Ramon Villaraigosa (born Antonio (Tony) Ramon Villar, Jr. on January 23, 1953) is the mayor of Los Angeles, California. He is the first Latino mayor of Los Angeles since Cristobal Aguilar in 1872. , agree the initial emphasis should be on luring high-wage manufacturing jobs to the Chatsworth site on Prairie prairie Level or rolling grassland, especially that found in central North America. Decreasing amounts of rainfall, from 40 in. (100 cm) at the forested eastern edge to less than 12 in. Street between Corbin and Winnetka avenues. ``It's a beautiful piece of property, and this will be our highest priority as business development goes, probably for the coming year,'' said Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. City Councilman Greig Smith Greig Smith is a Los Angeles City Councilman, representing the 12th District, which includes Granada Hills, Northridge and other parts of the Western San Fernando Valley. Smith is also a reserve officer for the Los Angeles Police Department. , whose district includes Chatsworth. ``I think if anybody came to me and said, we want to put a retail center there, I would probably say no. But ... it's kind of early to tell.'' The Times announced last week that it was ending a costly foray into Verb 1. foray into - enter someone else's territory and take spoils; "The pirates raided the coastal villages regularly" raid encroach upon, intrude on, obtrude upon, invade - to intrude upon, infringe, encroach on, violate; "This new colleague invades my the Valley that began more than 20 years ago. The company plans to shut the facility, consolidate printing operations at three other locations outside the Valley, eliminate 110 jobs and put the 250,000-square-foot building and land up for sale in early 2006. The parcel is zoned for industrial use, and Smith wants his staff and Villaraigosa's business team to map out a recruitment and development strategy. ``Obviously, it's a valuable property and it is something the city can't afford to let go to waste,'' Villaraigosa said. ``What I want to see are ways we can create more high-paying jobs for the San Fernando Valley.'' The mayor said he's instructed his business team to meet with Times executives to see how they can take advantage of this development opportunity. ``At this very early stage, it appears there's been a significant amount of interest in the property,'' Times spokesman David Garcia David Garcia (b. ? - died August 28, 2007) was a broadcast journalist for ABC News. Gracia had the distinction of becoming one of the first Hispanic news correspondents for a major American television network in the early 1970s. said in an e-mail response to questions. Trammell Crow's downtown office will handle the sale. Onno Zwaneveld, a Trammell Crow F. Trammell Crow (born June 11, 1914, in Dallas, Texas) is an American property developer who created several famous projects, including Dallas Market Center, Peachtree Center (Atlanta, Georgia), and San Francisco's Embarcadero Center. senior vice president, said the company is just starting its pricing and use-evaluation process and then deciding what the best use would be. ``We want to understand what the alternative uses would be by right given the existing zoning and talk to the city and see what other uses they would consider for the property,'' he said. Bruce Ackerman Bruce Arnold Ackerman (born August 19, 1943) is a famous constitutional law scholar in the United States. He is a Sterling Professor at Yale Law School and one of the most frequently cited legal academics in the country. Biography Ackerman received his B. , president and chief executive officer of the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley, said that given its location, adjacent rail line and room for expansion, the site is a natural for some type of manufacturing operation. ``We want to be plugged into it,'' he said. ``We want to do what we can to make sure it's a high-quality job generator. The biggest fear we have is it gets ... turned into a big-box retailer, which is not the highest and best use for that locality 1. locality - In sequential architectures programs tend to access data that has been accessed recently (temporal locality) or that is at an address near recently referenced data (spatial locality). This is the basis for the speed-up obtained with a cache memory. 2. .'' Bud Ovrum, deputy mayor for economic development, said the site has been underutilized as a printing facility. It is also important to preserve the city's job base so an incentive package will likely be put together, he said. ``It's a site that really lends itself to hitting a home run because it's that much land with very few jobs on it,'' he said. Commercial brokers familiar with the property are not sure what would be built there, saying retail and residential uses are the least likely, while office and industrial uses make sense. John Sabourin, a broker at the commercial firm Studley, said it's rare for a parcel this big to come on the market in the middle of the Valley. ``That would just be a natural location for more industrial,'' he said. John DeGrinis, senior vice president at Colliers International's office in Encino, has already discussed the property with the listing agent. He said he thinks an office campus might make more sense and since the building is configured con·fig·ure tr.v. con·fig·ured, con·fig·ur·ing, con·fig·ures To design, arrange, set up, or shape with a view to specific applications or uses: for a newspaper printing operation, it's a tear-down candidate. High-tech manufacturing might be a stretch. ``Over the last five or six years since the high-tech wreck, we have not seen a lot of significant activity from those users,'' he said. ``They currently have excess capacity.'' Staff Writer Rick Orlov contributed to this story. Gregory J. Wilcox, (818) 713-3743 greg.wilcox(at)dailynews.com |
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