By BETHANY FIRNHABER Staff Reporter

In Hollywood, where developers are pouring billionsinto sky-high projects, what few plots of developableland remain have become a smoking-hot commodity.

Case in point: A small property on SunsetBoulevard, currently home to a Jack-in-the-Boxrestaurant, is under contract for a super-sized price.

R.D. Olson Development has agreed to pay near-ly $13.8 million, more than $581 a square foot, for thehalf-acre property at the northeast corner of Sunset and

Cahuenga boulevards, accord-ing to real estate sources withknowledge of the deal. Thebuyer has paid a nonrefundabledeposit for the site and is work-ing through the due-diligenceprocess. The sale is expected toclose early next month.

Only one land deal inHollywood has exceeded that per-foot price. NewYork’s KLM Construction last year paid about $714a square foot for a long-term ground lease under theTCL Chinese Theatre. But the two land sales are not

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UpFront

By OMAR SHAMOUT Staff Reporter

The more you talk to folks at YouTube multi-channel networks these days, the less likely youare to hear them utter the name of the GoogleInc.-owned online video platform that put themon the map.

That’s because they’re broadening their busi-ness models to include revenue streams morealigned with the multipronged strategies of theHollywood studios that have paid millions of dol-lars to acquire them.

News &Analysis

L.A.’s biggestshipping linesranked. PAGE 16

The List

Please see INTERNET page 50

Online NetworkChannels Retail

Cousins areclawing theirway up in thelobster business.PAGE 3

By MATT PRESSBERG Staff Reporter

When California banks merge, their execu-tives know they’ll have to face off with belt-and-suspenders regulators and pinstripe-cladlawyers. But lately, their toughest foil might bePaulina Gonzalez.

She’s the executive director of the CaliforniaReinvestment Coalition, an activist group thatpushes banks to do more lending in low-incomeneighborhoods. Her latest target is a big one: Sheand the coalition are trying to hold up the mergerof Pasadena’s OneWest Bank with CIT Bank, adeal that would create L.A. County’s biggest bank.

INTERNET: AwesomenessTVsold on value of pop-up shop.

Fast-Food Site to Serve Up Hotel?REAL ESTATE: Marriotts makerpays $13.8 million for burger lot.

Activists’ProtestOn the MoneyBANKING: Coalition scoresconcessions in lender unions.

Please see BANKING page 51

Please see REAL ESTATE page 50

Norel Mancusosays you, too,can mix punk-rock apparel withdesigner wear.PAGE 53

ExecStyle

New LifeBioscience incubator homes in on CSULA

By HOWARD FINE Staff Reporter

Along-stalled bioscience incubator on L.A.’sEastside appears to be back on track – butat a new site, and with bigger ambitions.

After years of trying to develop an incubatorfor biotech startups in the old Los AngelesCounty-USC Medical Center building, the countyis now planning to put it at Cal State Los Angeles.And industry executives and county officials hopethe incubator, BioSpace LA, will become the cen-

terpiece of a three-mile bioscience corridor that’snow being marketed to developers.

Late last month, the Los Angeles CountyBoard of Supervisors approved $3.5 million infunding for the incubator, to be located inside amostly vacant science building on the Cal StateL.A. campus. Startup companies housed in theincubator would pay reduced or no rent; haveaccess to lab space; and get help with research,

Please see BIOSCIENCE page 49

SECOND LOOK: El Segundo is seeing a devel-opment revival, including Larry Fields’ UtahAvenue project, as former aerospace anddefense properties provide a low-cost alternative to pricier Silicon Beach locales.

BEGINNING ON PAGE 19

SPECIAL REPORTREAL ESTATE QUARTERLY

Message to realestate agents onseller’s voicemail.

‘Stopcalling’

Welcome: Cal State L.A. President William Covino at the school’s sciences building.

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marketing and business plans from incubator staff.Project backers, including Supervisor

Gloria Molina, hope the incubator will helptransform the gritty corridor between Cal StateLos Angeles and the County-USC complexinto the region’s premier biomedical center.

Molina, who represents the area, has hireddowntown L.A. consulting firm EstolanoLeSar Perez Advisors to market properties inthe corridor to developers with the hope ofbringing in biomedical firms. One of thelargest biomedical firms already on the corri-dor, blood plasma products maker Grifols, hasalready been active in the marketing effort.

“The area may look tired and worn now,”Molina told the Business Journal last week,“but with state-of-the art lab space andopportunities for researchers, we hope thiswill get us a hook into this industry that isgrowing so fast. In the process, we hope tocreate good-paying and stable jobs.”

Failed effortsThe quest for an Eastside bioscience incu-

bator and corridor started in 2000, when thecounty and the USC Keck School ofMedicine announced plans for a 100-acrebiotech park near County-USC. But the pro-posal ran into several obstacles, including thecounty’s unwillingness to relocate a juvenilejustice facility and squabbling between cityand county redevelopment agencies, whichwould have put in much of the money forinfrastructure improvements. After numerousreboots, the plan collapsed for good in 2012when Gov. Jerry Brown pulled the plug onredevelopment agencies.

Another plan, one that called for CulverCity business advisory group MomentumBiosciences to create an incubator in the his-toric – and vacant – County-USC medicalcenter building, also fell through. Organizerssaid it would have cost too much to renovatethe building, which opened in 1933.

“The space that was allocated for usturned out to be a nightmare,” saidMomentum Biosciences President PhilippCzernin. “There were so many constructionand improvement-related problems: plumb-ing, asbestos, a historic landmark designa-tion, you name it. We just weren’t able toget it done.”

Enter Cal State Los Angeles. In 2012, theuniversity opened a $100 million sciencecomplex to replace a 40-year-old sciencesbuilding. That building, which includes labspace, is now mostly vacant.

In May, the consultants Molina hiredapproached the university about promotingthe bioscience corridor.

“That’s when they offered their buildingfor the incubator and we jumped at theopportunity,” said Cecilia Estolano, a found-ing partner of Estolano LeSar Perez. “Youjust can’t find that kind of space with labsalready built in anywhere else.”

Estolano said the county and universityare expected to sign an agreement to formal-ly launch the incubator within the next fewweeks. The incubator could open for busi-ness six months later, after relatively minorrenovations. To start, the incubator will takeup about 5,000 square feet of the sciencebuilding’s 20,000-square-foot second floor.

“The beauty of this is that there’s plentyof room to grow as more companies comein,” Estolano said.

New Cal State L.A. President WilliamCovino said having a bioscience incubatoron campus will benefit students and facultyas well as fit in with the university’s efforts tocreate an “innovation alley.”

Unlike some other university-based incu-bators, Covino said there are no immediateplans for Cal State Los Angeles to take equi-

ty stakes in companies in the incubator.“That could change down the road, but

for now, we’ll just be offering the space,access to the labs and any assistance thecompanies need with research and businessplans,” he said.

Expansions afootWhile not known for being a major bio-

science school, Cal State Los Angeles doeshouse the county’s main forensics lab. Andit’s just three miles from the massive County-USC Medical Center and USC HealthSciences campus, which is in the midst of amajor expansion.

Development manager Melissa Schildsaid that under a master plan approved bythe USC Board of Trustees in 2011, the uni-versity plans over the next 20 years to devel-op 2.5 million square feet of academic, clin-ical and research space. Immediate plansinclude building a 110,000-square foot med-ical office building, a student housing proj-ect and a hotel.

Cal State L.A.’s campus also sits just southof Grifols, one of the largest private-sectoremployers on the proposed bioscience corridor.The U.S. headquarters of the Barcelona, Spain,plasma products giant Grifols S.A. employs850 on a 25-acre campus off East ValleyBoulevard. The site has been a plasma productsfactory since World War II, undergoing severalownership changes before Grifols took over in

2003. Since then, the company has pouredmore than $300 million into the site and ispresently building a manufacturing facility.

In 2005, Grifols started meeting withcounty officials about creating a biosciencecorridor. And earlier this month, it hosted adeveloper tour of properties within the pro-posed corridor.

One reason for Grifols’ interest: a corridorwould boost the region’s talent pool.

“We look at the Eastside of Los Angeles asan untapped gem for talent,” said KarenGlenn, the company’s government affairsmanager. “With a bioscience corridor, themore talented people come into the area, thegreater the talent pool is for all the employers.”

Gaps in middleWhile major developments are under

way on both ends end of the corridor, thethree miles in between are mostly filledwith decades-old buildings that lack theamenities new bioscience firms would need.And the often narrow streets need repairsand beautification.

Despite these obstacles, Estolano saidmore than 40 developers this month touredfive properties along the corridor that are forsale or lease.

Still, the path to a bustling bioscience corri-dor could prove difficult to navigate. In nearbyPasadena, civic, business and medical leadershad plans nearly 20 years ago for a biotech cor-ridor along Raymond Avenue, led by an expan-sion of Huntington Memorial Hospital.

But the plan fizzled a few years later, saidEric Duyshart, Pasadena’s economic devel-opment manager, as city officials decided itwas too risky to pick winning industry sec-tors.

Now, a small biomedical cluster hasdeveloped at the north end of Raymond, witha handful of new medical office and researchbuildings. The southern part developed as acenter for design and other creative firms.

Molina, who is now running for the LosAngeles City Council, said she remainshopeful the bioscience corridor will take off.

“With the incubator at Cal State L.A., allthe expansion at the USC health campus, ourpartnership with Grifols and the infrastruc-ture improvements we have planned, wehope that will be enough to make it a suc-cessful corridor,” she said.

Bioscience: Plan Hatches for Incubator, CorridorContinued from page 1

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On Board: William Covino at physical sciences building at Cal State L.A.’s campus. Grifols’ Karen Glenn at the headquarters of the blood plasma products maker.

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