Valley Firm to Renovate Van Nuys Civic Center

A prominent San Fernando Valley developer who built Warner Center’s gleaming high-rise buildings has been selected to renovate the aging, quake-damaged Van Nuys Civic Center, officials announced Wednesday.

The Voit Cos. of Woodland Hills beat out three other finalists for a city contract to build a $35-million, 210,000-square-foot municipal building with retail shops, a market plaza and a 300-space parking structure on a 2.3-acre city site.

The long-awaited Civic Center project will be financed primarily by Voit Cos. In exchange, the firm will have the right to lease the property for retail, office and restaurant space for 30 years.

During the 30-year period, the city will rent out space in the office building for officials from the building and safety, transportation, planning, city clerk and bureau of engineering departments.

At the end of the 30 years, the lease agreement will allow the city--at no cost--to take over ownership of the buildings.

In a second and third phase of the project, Voit or another developer will replace or renovate the earthquake-damaged City Hall to house the Van Nuys Library.

Funding for other phases of the project would come from savings realized by consolidating office space, selling off adjacent city-owned parking lots and using federal earthquake repair funds to replace the quake-damaged City Hall.

The main proponent of the Civic Center project, Councilman Marvin Braude, announced the selection of the Voit Cos. on Wednesday, saying he is happy the project is moving ahead, one month before he retires.

“This took me 12 years to accomplish,” he said.

A similar renovation plan proposed in 1991 was shelved because no private developers offered to bid on the project. At the time, city officials said the project fell victim to a faltering real estate market and developer unwillingness to invest on troubled Van Nuys Boulevard.

This time, Braude and other city officials said the project attracted interest, in part, because the agreement provided the developer a more predictable revenue stream through the city’s rental fees. An improvement in the economy also helped, they said.

Groundbreaking is scheduled for January 1999, with completion of the office building expected in December of that year. Other improvements will follow immediately, and the building is due to be ready for occupancy in May 2000.

The Voit Cos. was selected by an eight-member selection team, made up of city officials and private-sector real estate professionals.

In a statement, Robert Voit, president of the Voit Cos., said he plans to get neighborhood input on the project.

“The Voit Cos. intend to spend a great deal of effort to ensure that the Valley community is able to provide its input and guidance on the project,” he said.

Daniel Rosenfeld, who manages the city’s real estate holdings, will oversee the Van Nuys project.

“[Robert] Voit’s track record in the Valley is impeccable,” Rosenfeld said. “He is Mr. Valley.”

Voit has worked in the Valley for 25 years. The firm’s largest development was construction of the Warner Center plaza, a 1.8-million-square-foot office complex that was built between 1971 and 1994 as the Valley’s answer to Century City.

Last February, city officials announced that the Voit Cos. and Selleck Properties had teamed up to redevelop the vacant General Motors site in Panorama City, with promises to build retail stores, a police substation, a theater and an industrial complex.