Two prominent real estate investment firms are planning a major office building complex in Playa Vista, adding another large development to an area already at the heart of a construction boom.
Tishman Speyer and Walton Street Capital are paying more than $200 million for land south of Marina del Rey where the owners of entertainment company DreamWorks SKG once planned to build a studio, according to people with knowledge of the deal who asked not to be identified because the transaction is still in escrow.
They are expected to develop an office campus that is likely to cater to the area's burgeoning entertainment and technology businesses.
By developing the last available piece of commercially zoned land in Playa Vista, the project would complete Playa Vista's design as a combined residential, retail and business complex and further cement the transition of that section of Los Angeles County from an industrial center to a white-collar business destination.
More than 2,500 condominiums, apartments and town homes have been built at Playa Vista, most of them erected by home builders who bought the land from Playa Vista. Sales have been brisk and 750 more units are in development.
The Los Angeles Clippers recently started work on a new basketball training facility at Playa Vista.
"This was an area with a lot of marginal land uses," said economist Jack Kyser of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. "The project stitches together the Westside with areas in El Segundo and Redondo Beach that are already bastions of Fortune 500 companies and high technology."
Developing offices at Playa Vista "makes perfect sense," Kyser said. Rents are rising on the Westside and vacancy has fallen below 7% as expanding companies lease up existing space.
The property already has approvals from the city of Los Angeles for almost 2 million square feet of development and thus is not subject to further community or environmental review.
But the addition of an office complex nonetheless disheartened Playa Vista opponents and wetlands activists. Further development there "is going to create huge traffic impacts," said Bruce Robertson, director of the Ballona Valley Preservation League, a grass-roots organization formed in 1995.
Wetlands activist Susan Suntree said the additional commercial space, on top of current and anticipated development in Playa Vista, Marina del Rey and environs, portended "that life on the Westside is going to be just that much more intractable and unbearable and air pollution is going to increase and the 405 has had it.
