Monterey Park Business Center Adds 4 Buildings
What’s a more eye-soothing sight than an old brickyard? Why, 110 luxuriantly landscaped acres studded with handsome new office buildings.
The development is the Los Angeles Corporate Center in Monterey Park, where the second phase will officially open Thursday, adding four buildings for a total of 389,000 square feet of office space and $50 million in property value to the business park.
Developed by a joint venture of Ellis Sloan Burnett Properties, a partnership formed by Edward C. Ellis with Mark Sloan and Robert Burnett, and Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., the center is near the junctions of the Long Beach (710) Freeway with the Pomona (60) and the San Bernardino (10) freeways.
The center’s first phase also contains four buildings: a six-story, 120,000-square-foot tower and a four-story, 81,000-square-foot office building, both developed by the joint venture; the 40,000-square-foot Metropolitan Division headquarters of the Southern California Gas Co., and a 20,000-square-foot regional headquarters for the General Electric Medical System, the latter two built on land purchased from the developer.
Now completed in the second phase is a six-story tower at 900 Corporate Center Drive, twin to the one in the first phase; under construction is a four-story, 86,000-square-foot building with completion scheduled in August, both being built by the joint venture.
The second phase is filled out by a 78,000-square-foot, two-story office/research-and-development building by Zelman Development Co., nearly completed, and a five-story, 105,000-square-foot office building and adjoining three-story parking structure being built by Kajima International Inc. and earmarked to house that company’s West Coast headquarters. Zelman and Kajima also purchased their building sites.
The two six-story buildings were designed by Langdon Wilson Mumper Architects and the new four-story building was designed by Herbert Nadel & Associates. Morley Construction Co. was general contractor for both.
Twelve additional parcels, ranging in size from a fraction of an acre to 10 acres of buildable land are for sale “for construction of projects that are compatible with the overall master plan of the Corporate Center,” Sloan said.
Other Signed Tenants
Sloan also announced that signing of a 10-year lease by Security Pacific National Bank puts leasing of the first six-story building at 80%. Tenant improvements have begun in the bank’s space and occupancy is set for July 1.
Other tenants in that building are A T & T Communications, McDonnell Douglas Computer Systems Co. and the Breadwinner Restaurants, while other corporate tenants of the center include Mobil Oil, ITT, CalFed Insurance and A. C. Neilsen Co.
The Breadwinner, a food service facility, will open next month in the office building at 1000 Corporate Center Drive. Plans are for a full retail center with free-standing restaurants, a financial institution branch and service businesses to rise near the center’s Floral Drive entrance.
Former Brick Company
The exclusive leasing and land-sales agent is Cushman & Wakefield, Los Angeles.
Design and marketing are specialties handled by Burnett, an architect. It was he who said the site was occupied by the Davidson Brick Co., incorporated in April, 1928, and purchased in 1982 by the Ellis-Sloan-Burnett partnership.
“We ran it about a year and sold it to the employees,” Burnett said. “They closed it here and moved it to the Perris area.”
Burnett said that they moved 3 million cubic yards of earth in making the building pads for the corporate center, lowering the central hill about 300 feet.
The entire site was landscaped from the beginning, instead of waiting for various phases to be developed, Burnett said. “The result is a literally park-like environment from entrance to entrance, and this has proved important in marketing the project. Employees can jog, stroll, lunch on the grass near fountains and, in general, enjoy the out-of-doors as much as they choose.”
