Management Firm Expands Culver City Holdings

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Karney Management Co., a Brentwood firm run by Aliza Karney Guren and her sister, Susanna Karney Flaster, has set its sights on Culver City.

The firm purchased Robertson Business Park earlier this month for $37 million, or roughly $325 a square foot, from UDC Properties, a Culver City business operated by Ruben Urcis. The park, which was last week renamed Robertson Station for its proximity to the Culver City Expo Line stop, is composed of two two-story buildings and a four-story parking structure.

The larger of the two, an 86,000-square-foot Class B office building at 3710 Robertson Blvd., is 94 percent occupied and anchored by a FedEx shop. The 28,000-square-foot Class B office building at 3750 S. Robertson is fully leased by several small tenants.

Karney bought the space for much lower than the average sale price for office buildings in Culver City, which is $483 a square foot, according to data from CoStar Group Inc. However, the average has been driven up by creative office sales, like the Beats by Dre headquarters building that sold earlier this year for more than $860 a square foot.

Brentwood firm LesMark’s Mark Berman, who represented both the buyer and seller in the transaction along with Les Small, said the price might have been lower because most of the leasable spaces are small.

“We made a decision as a family, looking to the next generation, to reposition our real estate to an area that would provide growth,” said Karney Guren.

It’s not the firm’s first Culver City purchase. On May 8, Karney bought a 45,000-square-foot Class C Building at 8740 Washington Blvd. for $22 million from the Exceptional Children’s Foundation.

Demolition Blues

The House of Blues in West Hollywood will face the wrecking ball sooner than expected.

The legendary venue at 8430 Sunset Blvd. will close Aug. 7, according to a notice filed with the state Employment Development Department, to be demolished to make way for a mixed-use hotel development from Century City engineering and construction firm Aecom Technology Corp. and Beverly Hills developer Combined Properties Inc.

The approved project includes a 96,000-square-foot, 149-room hotel with a nightclub and bowling alley as well as a 137,000-square-foot residential building with 40 condos and five affordable housing units, said John Keho, assistant director of West Hollywood’s Community Development Department.

House of Blues, which opened in 1994, had planned to keep on rockin’ for a bit longer. Last summer, Live Nation Entertainment Inc., owner of House of Blues Los Angeles Restaurant Corp., said the West Hollywood location would have at least two more years to find a new location. That was before the construction schedule for the two-acre site, which Aecom and Combined acquired 10 years ago, was bumped up.

“We were able to move up our construction schedule as part of our approved plan for the property,” said Marianne Lowenthal, vice president of development at Combined.

With construction starting so soon, Jim Yeager, spokesman for the House of Blues, said “the inconvenience to our guests and performers would be too great” and the decision was made to close the venue. A new location has not yet been found and 197 employees will be laid off.

Three hotel projects are under construction on the Sunset Strip, with several more in the pipeline, Keho said.

Bruce Baltin of PFK Consulting USA, a hospitality consulting arm of downtown L.A.’s CBRE Group Inc., said the West Hollywood hotel market seems hot now because there were projects in the pipeline before the recession hit, and developers are picking them up now that financing and market conditions are favorable.

Rolling Renovation

Phoenix real estate investor Vestar has embarked on a $12 million renovation of the Peninsula Center in Rolling Hills Estates.

Work on the 300,000-square-foot property will include the addition of three buildings that will add more than 14,000 square feet to the center, renovation of existing storefronts and creation of a road tying together the shopping center’s multiple pads.

Vestar acquired the Peninsula Center in March 2013 in an $87.3 million deal but did not have its renovation plans approved by the city until May 2014.

“We bought the property with the intent of doing these renovations,” said Jeff Axtell, executive vice president at Vestar.

According to Axtell, the property’s location makes the shopping center a prime retail destination for Palos Verdes residents.

Vestar has leased space to several new retailers to the property, including Sports Authority, Ulta Beauty and Chipotle. Sports Authority has announced it will open in November and Ulta has set its grand opening for January.

Axtell said Vestar’s goal is to “create an environment so people can stay on the hill and shop on the hill.”

Staff reporter Hannah Miet can be reached at [email protected] or at (323) 549-5225, ext. 228. Staff reporters Carol Lawrence and Nicole Piper contributed to this report.

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