Industry Not Just Home to Industries : Offices Like City’s Location and New Business Center
Despite the success of the Industry Hills sports complex and the Puente Hills Mall, the City of Industry has an image problem: It’s viewed by many people as one vast industrial and warehouse district strung out along the Pomona (60) Freeway.
Arnel Development Co., Santa Ana, is doing its part to put the “city” in the City of Industry with the $65-million, 400,000-square-foot Puente Hills Business Center adjoining the Puente Hills Mall and Puente Hills East retail center.
The latest phase, a six-story, 125,000-square-foot office building with a three-story atrium entrance, opened last Thursday.
A major new tenant in the building--occupying 40,000 square feet of space--is the Kemper Group. The firm moved its 250-employee Southern California headquarters from 3545 Wilshire Blvd., a location described by Kemper’s Peter R. Hyland as not convenient for most employees.
Must Look Eastward
“Companies that want to move out of central Los Angeles--especially those with many employees--must look eastward,” according to Ten Konopisos, president of Arnel Management Co. “More working people live east of mid-town Los Angeles than west of it; it’s a function of geography and economics.”
The perception of the City of Industry as acres and acres of manufacturing and warehousing buildings is only partly correct, according to Gregory R. Morrell, vice president and resident manager of the San Gabriel Valley office of Coldwell Banker Commercial Real Estate Services.
“The city is, in fact, the major retailing center of the San Gabriel Valley,” said Morrell, whose office is in one of the first-phase buildings in the three-phase center.
Already occupying space in the first two buildings of the center, along with Coldwell Banker, are: Union Bank’s commercial office and real estate appraisal division, the district offices of Safeway Stores, Shearson/American Express Mortgage Corp., Aluminum Co. of America, Dow Chemical Co., Southern Pacific, Iodent Chemical Co., GTE Telenet, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co., National Can Co. and the regional headquarters of Wendy’s International.
Hyland, resident secretary of the principal companies of the Kemper Group, admits that before he settled on the City of Industry location, he spent hours “driving around looking for suitable office space. On my own, I might not have come to the City of Industry,” he said.
The Industry Hills Resort with its Sheraton hotel, two golf courses, tennis and swimming facilities seven minutes away, also influenced Hyland’s decision: “We have people in from our other offices and Chicago headquarters frequently. They fly into Ontario Airport and stay at the Sheraton. It’s a great timesaver.”
Arnel Management’s Konopisos said that, in addition to the shopping centers adjoining the business center, there are 13 new restaurants, ranging from dinner houses to fast-food outlets. One of the latter, a McDonald’s, has an Art Deco interior that wouldn’t be out of place on Melrose Avenue, he said.
Designed by Jeffrey L. Carlile AIA, Santa Ana, the newest building has an oak-paneled lobby with a front wall of clear glass rising two stories, permitting an overlooking balcony from the second floor. Upper floors include some tenant suites with double-door entries.
Hyland said that when Kemper built its building in 1957, a “Wilshire Boulevard presence for a major insurance company was de rigeur . Today, it’s no longer important, with automation reducing the number of tasks that have to be done in each location. We were rattling around in a building too big for us,” he added.
Another benefit with its location, Hyland points out, are job opportunities to people who want to work part time: “In a suburban location we can do that. Our operations lend themselves to work sharing and we believe it is a practical approach for us and our employees.”
