Three plans submitted to develop Air Force base.

Bid from West L.A. builder identifies new partnership

Three separate development teams have submitted conceptual proposals for a $5.5 billion commercial redevelopment project at Norton Air Force in San Bernardino.

As expected, West Los Angeles-based developer Iddo Benzeevi submitted one of the proposals, and revealed that his new partner is Goldrich & Kest Industries, a Culver City-based developer.

Benzeevi's new financial backer is Bankers Trust Co., according to his proposal documents.

Other entities listed as members of Benzeevi's new team include engineering giant Raytheon UE&C Inc.; University of California at Riverside; planning firm SWA Group; accounting firm Kenneth Leventhal & Co.; the law firms of Graham & James and Cox, Castle & Nicholson; and New Epoch Consultants of San Francisco.

Benzeevi, in a phone interview last week, said only two members of his team will be "at-risk equity partners" under the current plan. Those two are Goldrich & Kest and Bankers Trust.

Benzeevi's proposal calls for an intermodal cargo hub, a variety of commercial industrial buildings, a regional mall and multi-family housing. All proposals are only conceptual at this time. Hence, the actual number and size of buildings have not yet been specified.

Benzeevi won an earlier competition in 1990 for the right to exclusively negotiate for the contract to redevelop the 400-to-500-acre Norton project site. But his exclusive negotiation period was allowed to expire in June of last year after Benzeevi's partner at that time, Sherman Oaks-based Anden Group, became the subject of political controversy and backed away from the deal.

The political controversy arose when local media reports surfaced that Anden had about $500,000 in liens against its properties.

Another development team that submitted a proposal to redevelop the Norton Air Force site is called Cal Tai Associates-Henderson Group. Leading that team is John Miskell, a San Jose, Calif.-based real estate developer. The other two members are Henderson Group, a Pennsylvania-based real estate company; and a consortium of Taiwanese investors.

Miskell refused to comment last week. But his Southland attorney, Bruce Varner, described the team's redevelopment proposal as an "international trade center."

"We would arrange to have about 300 Taiwanese companies set up operations (at the Norton site)," Varner explained. "Those local operations would import parts from Taiwan. Those parts would be assembled here and then distributed throughout the U.S."

Those new assembly-distribution plants would probably be managed by foreign nationals from Taiwan and other Pacific Rim nations, Varner conceded. But they would also employ an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 Southland workers.

Miskell's plan also calls for some residential units and recreational amenities, including revitalization of the existing 18-hole Norton Golf Course.

The third proposal was submitted by Oxford Group, a development company with offices in downtown Los Angeles and Westwood.

Morad K. Golcheh, principal owner of Oxford Group, last week said his team includes two Texas-based real estate giants -- Trammell Crow Co. and Brown & Root USA Inc.

Lee Carson, a principal at Trammell Crow's Los Angeles regional headquarters, clarified that Trammell Crow has not agreed to be an at-risk equity partner with Oxford Group.

"We have agreed to be engaged as consultants, for a fee," Carson said. "But our involvement to date has been nil."

Officials at Brown & Root USA Inc. were unavailable at press time.

Golcheh described his team's proposal as a diversified business center emphasizing aviation, distribution, biotechnology, electronics and international trade. Later phases of Oxford Group's project would contain retail and hotel/motel projects, Golcheh said.

A report on all three proposals is scheduled to be submitted this week (Jan. 29) to the board of directors of the Inland Valley Development Agency (IVDA), the joint powers authority charged with getting Norton redeveloped.

At that same meeting, the IVDA board is expected to appoint a 17-member citizens advisory committee. That committee's mission will be to review the three proposals and issue a recommendation to the IVDA board.

Marshall Julian, deputy executive director of the IVDA, said the citizens advisory committee would likely submit its recommendation to the IVDA board in early March.

If all goes as planned, the recommended development team could enter into exclusive negotiations with the IVDA shortly thereafter, and a final deal could be struck by early summer, Julian said.