Mixed-Use Project Eyed Near Airport
A group including veteran Los Angeles developer Jim Thomas is negotiating with El Segundo officials over plans for a large mixed-use development on one of the largest vacant sites near Los Angeles International Airport.
Thomas Properties Group is part of the development group discussing the project dubbed El Segundo Corporate Campus on 46 acres north of Mariposa Avenue between Nash Street and North Douglas Way.
Preliminary plans call for construction of more than 2 million square feet of facilities, including office, light-industrial, hotel and retail uses.
The long-vacant site once housed a Rockwell International aircraft-parts facility. Courier giant FedEx Inc. bought the property in 1997 but wasn’t able to get city approval for a development anchored by a parcel transfer center.
City officials want to see a higher-end mix of uses including retail and entertainment amenities that would help keep the neighborhood active “seven days a week” rather than just on weekdays, said Jim Hansen, the city’s director of community, economic and development services.
The prospective builders are negotiating specifics of a development agreement with city officials and have commissioned an environmental impact review that is underway.
A formal proposal probably will come before the city’s Planning Commission this fall, Hansen said.
Thomas Properties Group’s senior vice president, Thomas Ricci, is the point person for the development group, Hansen said.
Ricci declined to discuss the project. A spokesman for FedEx, which still owns the property, confirmed that a sale is in the works but declined to provide further information.
Potential buyers have considered a variety of uses for the site, most of which entailed developing in phases, splitting the property into smaller parcels, or both. Sound stages, entertainment-themed centers, telecom facilities and technology-based business incubators have been discussed for the property in recent years. But none of the proposals came to fruition, and the city has continued to encourage a large mixed-use project that would bolster the city’s tax base.
The Thomas group’s plans come at a time when demand for El Segundo business space has begun cooling off after a sustained period of rising rents and property values.
Several commercial developments are on the way in and around El Segundo even as an economic slowdown--particularly in the technology sector--has stemmed demand for space. None of the developers has announced any tenant “pre-lease” commitments.
The average asking rent for El Segundo office space is $2.53 a square foot monthly, compared with $2.23 a year ago.
But the vacancy rate is 8.3%, up from 5.7% at mid-year 2000, according to brokerage services company CB Richard Ellis.
Before founding Thomas Properties Group, Jim Thomas was a partner with developer Rob Maguire in the high-profile Los Angeles firm Maguire Thomas Partners.
Since the two parted in the mid-1990s, Thomas’ downtown Los Angeles real estate company has been an active commercial property buyer and builder. His firm is a real estate advisor to giant public pension fund California State Teachers Retirement System.
