Deal Is ‘Close’ on GM Plant, Official Says
General Motors is close to completing a deal with a Woodland Hills-based partnership to develop the abandoned GM assembly plant in Panorama City, a high-ranking City Hall official said Monday.
The team includes Selleck Properties of Woodland Hills, a company whose partners include actor Tom Selleck, his father and two brothers, and Voit Cos., the firm that developed much of the Warner Center, the source said.
The Selleck company is known primarily for building shopping complexes like the Gateway Shopping Center in Palmdale and a cluster of shops around a Lucky supermarket in Reseda.
A GM representative declined to confirm or deny the negotiations. “We have some ongoing discussions regarding that facility but we have nothing to disclose at this time,” said GM spokeswoman Linda Cook.
Dan Selleck, the partner in Selleck Properties who is negotiating with GM on the site, could not be reached for comment.
But the city official, who declined to be identified, said the team of Selleck and Voit are in exclusive negotiations with GM and that an agreement is “close.”
City officials are pushing for a development that would include retail stores along busy Van Nuys Boulevard near Saticoy Street and industrial projects along the back of the 100-acre site, a mixture that proponents say would generate at least 1,000 jobs.
The negotiations are the latest development in a long-playing drama to re-employ the plant that closed in August, 1992, after producing 6.3 million cars and employing thousand of local workers over a 45-year period.
Rumors have circulated for months over a possible sale. Last month, sources confirmed that the slate of developers vying to buy and build on the property had been narrowed to three major Southern California firms, including the Selleck/Voit partnership.
GM agreed last month to donate five acres of the site to the city for location of a new San Fernando Valley police station. The remaining land is expected to sell for around $20 million.
Although city officials have suggested for months that an agreement was close to being finalized, several previous negotiations have apparently collapsed despite the city’s offer to expedite the deal by letting GM sell the plant to a nonprofit organization set up by Mayor Richard Riordan’s administration to allow GM to claim a tax deduction. The selected developer would in turn buy the land from the nonprofit organization.
