Film Company Opens at Ex-Lockheed Site : Conversion: Burbank-based Agfa moves to a building on former Vanowen Street parking lot.

A new $7.3-million film industry building has opened on what used to be a parking lot owned by the Lockheed Aircraft Co., marking the first time that Lockheed property has been redeveloped since the aerospace giant pulled out of the city.

The 116,000-square-foot structure at 3800 Vanowen St. will be leased by the Agfa subsidiary of Bayer Corp., which manufactures motion-picture film in Europe and distributes it in California.

John E. Moseley, whose company, SMC Properties of Calabasas, developed the land, said that the changes in the aerospace industry and the pullout of Lockheed might normally have had “a devastating effect” but that “a changeover of this type of land from a military type of use . . . is very significant.”

Located just south of the new Burbank Airport Metrolink station, the site is the first Lockheed land to be redeveloped since the aerospace firm left Burbank in 1990, said Jim O’Neil of the city’s Community Development Department.

Because the property had been used only as a parking lot by Lockheed’s employees, it did not take long to redevelop when compared with other Lockheed land requiring extensive environmental cleanup work, such as the firm’s former B-1 plant at 1705 Victory Place, O’Neil said.

“There are not the environmental issues on [the Vanowen Street] site that have impacted their other sites,” he added. “It’s an easier site to recycle.”

Agfa opened its doors for business Thursday after moving from its previous location at 914 N. Victory Blvd.

Agfa’s new building, which includes a 21,000-square-foot storage room, will be the subsidiary’s main distribution center on the West Coast for products such as motion-picture film and photography equipment, Moseley said.