GM Plant Sale Effort Still Stuck in 1st Gear : Redevelopment: A city plan to buy the site and broker a deal has gone nowhere. Tax breaks could entice the auto maker to lower its price.

Despite offers by the city of Los Angeles to broker the sale of the vacant General Motors plant in Panorama City, efforts to find a buyer for the 100-acre plant to help spur economic renewal continue to falter, officials said Wednesday.

High-level city officials have floated offers to buy the GM plant so the city can use its financial backing and tax breaks to make the facility more affordable to a new buyer.

But the plan to have the city play middleman in the sale has not been viable because neither GM nor the city has been able to attract a serious buyer.

City Councilman Richard Alarcon, whose district includes the plant and who has been working for months to find a new occupant, said the city would purchase the plant only if a serious buyer were prepared to take it over.

“I have always felt that there was an opportunity to use the city or some other vehicle as a pass-through to reduce the price,” he said. “(But) we really need a third-party investor.”

GM spokesman Peter Ternes said the company and city officials have had numerous discussions about the plant since it closed in August, 1992, but he said the sides are no closer today to signing an agreement than they were 18 months ago.

Ternes declined to reveal the price that GM has discussed with the city or comment on reports that the city has offered between $5 million and $10 million for the site.

“The selling price depends on how the buyer wants to use the facility. There are a lot of factors that will influence the price,” Ternes said.

Located on Van Nuys Boulevard near Saticoy Street, the plant was once the symbol of the region’s manufacturing might. The facility’s assembly line produced 6.3 million cars over 45 years, most notably Camaros and Firebirds.

Since it closed, eliminating 2,600 jobs and further depressing the San Fernando Valley’s economy, Alarcon and other high-level city officials have met with GM officials to discuss incentives that would draw a new manufacturing firm to the site.

But the size of the facility, a potential ground-soil contamination problem and the deteriorating condition of the 71,000-square-foot plant have made it difficult to market.

One way the city can attract potential buyers is to offer GM a substantial tax break if it sells the site to the city at a below-market price. The city would then offer the plant to a third party at a discount.

Ted Stein, a special adviser to Mayor Richard Riordan who has been involved in trying to speed the plant sale for several weeks, declined to say how close the city has come to buying the site, except that the mayor “has been proactive in attempting to purchase the property for the purpose of facilitating the development.”

But others were more blunt about the plant’s prospects.

Ternes said, “There hasn’t been a lot of earnest interest” in the site since it was put up for sale.

Cushman-Wakefield, the firm hired by GM to market the property, listed it at $50 million in April, 1993. Todd Lorver, a Grubb & Ellis commercial property broker, said his company appraised the facility at $25 million.

“If the city gets in there and is willing to provide economic assistance to users, it can be a viable site, but it’s going to take a substantial investment,” Lorver said.

Lorver also questioned reports that GM could receive a sizable tax break by selling the closed facility to the city.

“GM would have to be manufacturing something there in order to take a tax credit. I don’t see how this can happen unless there is some special accounting done at the state level,” Lorver said.

Alarcon said a serious offer was made for the plant several months ago by a major corporation for use as a distribution center. But he said the deal fell through, though he declined to provide details, and no other serious offers have come forward.