ROTTING REMINDER ONCE A HUB, VALLEY FED BUILDING SLIPS INTO DECAY.

Byline: Dana Bartholomew Staff Writer

VAN NUYS - It was the heart of San Fernando Valley business, the hub for Valley loans, the hand to Valley charity.

And home to local buzz, from its Talk of the Valley bistro to its eighth- floor mahogany boardroom.

But in recent years the Valley Federal Savings high-rise has become a symbol of economic blight. Broken and boarded up since the Northridge Earthquake in 1994, Valley Fed and other vacant office buildings along Van Nuys Boulevard have become magnets for trash, graffiti and squatters.

The one-time headquarters of the failed Valley thrift, which went out of business in 1992, and the vacant 13-story Panorama Towers building two miles up the street have also helped drive away business, discourage redevelopment and depress areas of Van Nuys and Panorama City, officials say.

``Somebody's got to answer the question: Why are they where they are and why isn't anybody doing anything about them?'' said Bruce Ackerman, president of the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley.

``Here are two buildings that are condemned. They are a blight to the community. The private sector hasn't worked. If anything screams for a private-public approach, it would be these two projects.''

City officials say they have tried to intervene, with the Mayor's Business Team offering to help both property owners secure federal grants to rehabilitate the structures.

``Our offer hasn't been taken up,'' said Julie Wong, a spokeswoman for Mayor James Hahn.

Officials say they have to rely on nuisance-abatement ordinances to try to keep problems at bay, but come up against the problem of owners ``flipping'' properties to associates - quickly transferring title in order to stay ahead of abatement crackdowns. They also say the owners are ``land- banking'' properties by keeping prices artificially high in the hope of making more money down the road.

Landlords deny the accusations.

The attorney for the owner of the Valley Fed building says numerous offers to lease or buy the building have fallen through, but that a potential deal with Los Angeles County is in the works.

``My understanding is it's for sale to somebody who wants to put a government building in there for the county of Los Angeles,'' said Timothy Hanigan, counsel to building owner Ali Reza Jayez. ``He's had the building three years and is losing his butt on it.''

$1 million in repairs

Home to hundreds of county workers until the Northridge Quake, the 180,000-square-foot Panorama Towers building awaits nearly $1 million worth of seismic repairs and millions more in tenant upgrades.

Owners of that structure, and of the six-story Union Bank building nearby, have submitted development plans to house offices for the county Department of Social Services.

``This building is not the type of building that you can throw a little paint at - it needs a substantial amount of money,'' said Berj Boyajian, an attorney who represents M. Thagi Shoraka, owner of Panorama Towers and former owner of Valley Fed.

``He's not waiting to 'flip' it. He's going to make it fly. He feels a civic obligation. ... But while it's been in escrow for a year, his hands are tied.''

When the 80,000-square-foot Valley Federal Savings building was built in 1963 at 6842 Van Nuys Blvd., it became the center of power in the San Fernando Valley. Then-Mayor Tom Bradley was a paid director. Aspiring business leaders yearned to sit at its ebony boardroom table.

``They spared no expense to make it nice - it was the best building in the Valley,'' said David Fleming, a former attorney for Valley Fed and its very first tenant. ``It was the place to meet, the key place in the Valley.''

``You really felt you were in a seat of power up there,'' said Planning Commissioner Bob Scott, a former president of the Van Nuys Chamber of Commerce.

Now, he said, ``It's almost a ghost building, a Flying Dutchman: You can almost see the city fathers still meeting upstairs.''

You can also see the broken panels, shattered windows and court-ordered fences recently erected to bar a decade of vagrants.

The same judge who ordered barriers erected around the building also ordered it painted - an institutional-green splash to cover the work of countless taggers, including one who used a fire hose to rappel from the roof to spray graffiti on the wall beneath the Valley Federal Savings sign.

Keeping it ugly

``It's an eyesore,'' added Ray Roscoe, 51, of West Hills, a telemarketer who works in an office next door.

``There should be a statute or something for a building that is condemned in a natural catastrophe. They should have torn this down a long time ago and built something profitable.''

While it isn't a crime to possess an empty building, city attorneys and building inspectors say it is a crime to let it slide into neglect. They cited the owners of both properties numerous times in 1995, and also filed a civil suit that resulted in the judge's order to paint and fence Valley Fed.

``The city is doing everything it can to get this thing done,'' said Dave Keim, code enforcement bureau chief for the Building and Safety Department.

Sandy Kievman, senior deputy for Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, said the Valley Fed building threatens to mar a $3 million program to spruce up Van Nuys Boulevard and $34 million more to upgrade the Civic Center.

But until the owners decide to make the improvements themselves, or sell the buildings to someone who will, there apparently is little else that can be done.

Owners stand in way?

Rickey Gelb, a commercial real-estate broker, said he's interested in rehabilitating both buildings in conjunction with the Valley Economic Development Center, but that their owners demand too much money.

Danny Miller, a Realtor for Lee & Associates, said he's also found tenants for both properties, but to no avail.

City officials are taking aim against visual blight in the city, recently passing an ordinance that bans new billboards citywide.

And just a month ago, Hahn posed before TV cameras as a bulldozer knocked down a haven for drug users in Watts.

``It shouldn't have taken this long to get rid of this,'' he told the city as he championed his nuisance abatement team while the eyesore was reduced to rubble. ``We need to get new procedures in place so people don't have to live with this.''

Gelb, however, concluded that city nuisance laws lack teeth.

``It's the biggest nightmare,'' Gelb said of the Valley Fed fiasco. ``If the city legally has the right to tear it down, tear it down.

``Every city I know of besides Los Angeles gives proper notice to the owner. If they don't care for it, they get the bulldozer and level the building and that's that - it becomes a vacant lot.''

CAPTION(S):

2 photos, map

Photo:

(1 -- 2 -- color) Weeds flourish in the cracked asphalt of this parking lot near the Valley Federal Savings building, at left, once a bright spot in Valley real estate, in Van Nuys. At far left, with the guard booth long abondoned, a padlocked chain serves as a driveway barrier at the Panorama Towers building.

Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer

Map:

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