Plant developers purchase another site in Panorama City.

A joint venture of Volt Commercial Development Co. and Selleck Development Group bought a 26-acre site at the southeast corner of Van Nuys Boulevard and Arminta Street in Panorama City from General Motors Corp.

The site, which includes a 220,000-square-foot building GM had used for emissions testing until moving out last month, is across from the Plant, the retail and industrial project Volt and Sellcck developed out of the old GM property in 1998. They sold it the following year to NF Plant Enterprises LP.

With land selling lot between $15 and $17 a foot in the area, according to Mike Tingus, senior vice president at Charles Dunn Co., the property would sell in the $17 million to $19 million range. Neither Dan Selleck, president of Westlake Village-based Selleck Development Group, nor Tim Regan, vice president at Volt, would disclose the purchase price, although Regan noted it was "more than we paid for the original 68 acres" across the street.

The partnership paid between $20 million and $30 million for the Plant site, according to a 1996 Daily News story.

The joint venture of Volt and Selleck, which includes actor Tom Selleck, may develop another 250,000 square feet of industrial space as well as 32,000 square feet of retail, with completion set for late next year or early 2006, according to Regan.

"We're considering a couple of buyers (for the existing industrial building)," said Regan. "By June, we'll have a parcel map completed."

Expensive Digs

In one of the county's largest apartment purchases of the year, Archstone-Smith Trust has bought the Legacy at Studio City apartment complex from Legacy Partners.

Archstone-Smith paid $84.5 million for the 276-unit development at 10945 Bluffside Drive. The apartment complex was built last year and is 93 percent occupied, with rents averaging about $2.25 a foot.

At $306,000 per unit, the price eclipses recent high-end deals for Pasadena's 214-unit Alexan City Place ($264,000 per unit) last year and Santa Monica's Sea Castle ($270,000) in 2001. Only Legacy's $85 million sale last September of the 187-unit Legacy at Westwood to Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association College Retirement Equities Fund, at $455.000 a unit, trumps the Studio City deal.

With the purchase, Archstone, which also owns Archstone Studio City and Archstone Studio Colony, will control 827 units along Studio City's Bluffside Drive and is investing in a Studio City apartment market where the average rent was $1,577 a month during the third quarter, 18 percent more than the county average, according to RealFacts.

"It's the most luxurious multifamily project in the San Fernando Valley," said Vince Norris, principal at Delson Norris Fischer Investment Real Estate Brokerage, who represented both sides of the deal. "(Archstone has) cornered the Studio City market."

Earlier this year, Archstone-Smith bought three Santa Monica apartment complexes totaling 229 units for a combined $57.5 million.

Last One Out

U.S. Bancorp has sold the last of the downtown Santa Monica properties it acquired when it bought out Santa Monica Bank holding company Western Bancorp in 1999.

U.S. Bancorp, whose subsidiary U.S. Bank got building-top signage rights to downtown Los Angeles' Library Tower in April when it agreed to take 160,000 square feet there, sold a half-acre parking lot at 1324 Fifth St. for more than $3.2 million to Taking The Fifth LLC, registered by Barry Beitler at the address of L.A.-based brokerage Beitler Commercial Realty Services.

Taking The Fifth bought the 15,000-square-foot parcel directly to the south from U.S. Bancorp in December 2002, and will attempt to develop a mixed-use project with residential elements on both properties, said Beitler, who represented Taking The Fifth but did not disclose the identity of the entity's investors.

In all, U.S. Bank has sold seven properties for more than $15 million, according to Nick Christensen, senior vice president at CB Richard Ellis, who represented U.S. Bank on the sales. Most prominent was the old Santa Monica Bank building at Fourth and Arizona streets where Circuit City has signed a 20-year lease.

Straight Into Compton

Boeing Realty Corp. has sold its 10.5-acre facility on Willowbrook Avenue just south of the Artesia (91) Freeway in Compton to Investment Development Services Inc., which will build a 140,000-square-foot industrial building on the site.

IDS, which has developed about 400,000 square feet in the South Bay region, paid about $6 million for the property, which includes a 43,000-square-foot building, and will break ground on the new building in the spring.

The project will be one of the few new projects along that stretch of the Artesia Freeway. Many lots in that area were developed into business parks during the early 1970s. IDS is building into a South Bay industrial market where the third quarter vacancy rate was just 3.4 percent, down from 3.9 percent for the year-earlier quarter, according to Grubb & Ellis Co.

"It's going to be light manufacturing and warehousing," said Dan Sibson, principal at L.A.-based IDS. "Port related businesses have been doing well."

CB Richard Ellis' John Schumacher and Bill Peters represented both sides of the deal.

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