El Segundo

An El Segundo office building occupied by Mattel Inc.'s Global Design Center was sold to New York investment firm Angelo, Gordon & Co. for $45 million. Angelo, Gordon bought the 192,053-square-foot building at 2031 E. Mariposa Ave. from Los Angeles real estate investment trust Kilroy Realty Corp., property brokerage Jones Lang LaSalle said. The site near Sepulveda Boulevard and the Century Freeway consists of nearly 10 acres on a flag-shaped lot. It was originally constructed in the 1950s as a distribution building and includes a sizable loading area and space for parking and trailer storage, the brokerage said.

Information technology firm Hewlett-PackardCo.renewed its lease of an entire building in El Segundo, real estate brokers said. The 47,576-square-foot building at 621 Hawaii St. is the regional office of Palo Alto computer maker Hewlett-Packard, according to brokerage Jones Lang LaSalle. The landlord is Asset Management Consultants Inc. of Mission Hills. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but experts familiar with the South Bay real estate market valued it at about $6 million.

The most archetypal American small town in Los Angeles County may be El Segundo, with its neighborly mid-century vibe. Visitors arriving on Main Street pass stately brick-and-stone El Segundo High School, a popular filming location, before encountering a large wooden directory erected by the Kiwanis Club that lists the city's 11 churches. Around the corner at Wendy's Place Cafe, there are framed jigsaw puzzles of Saturday Evening Post covers drawn by Norman Rockwell hanging on the paneled wall above the milkshake machine.

The party was already plenty glam, especially for El Segundo. Tall, beautiful women everywhere. Free-flowing booze and plates of hot sausages. Rock stars from Velvet Revolver and the Village People. Lots of - maybe too much - leather. And then Gene Simmons appeared. It wasn't even just the fact that he appeared, it was how he did it - on a ledge high above his guests' heads in the concert hall-esque dining area of Rock & Brews, his new El Segundo restaurant. (This was before another spectacle later in the week where he professed on Twitter to have NOT endorsed Mitt Romney.

Leuzinger baseball Coach Derrel Thomas, never one to lack confidence, fired the first fastball of the Bay League season this week when he said: "Last year we held our own. This year we're going to take it all." Other coaches may disagree with the former Dodger, but Leuzinger certainly has to be considered a contender for the Bay League crown after its impressive performance in the Costa Mesa/Newport Tournament.

To hear his brothers tell it, Heath Jones should take what pro baseball scouts say only half-seriously. Sure, says Cincinnati Reds outfielder Tracy Jones, Heath should run out everything hard because he'll never know who is watching. And yeah, says Kansas City Royals minor leaguer Terry Jones, Heath can expect to be drafted high with his 6-foot-5, 210-pound frame and his power-hitting hands that hammered five home runs for El Segundo High in just eight preseason games.

A few months after he was hired as El Segundo's city manager, Doug Willmore learned that his efforts to force Chevron, the town's oldest employer, to pay higher taxes had made him some enemies. He found a note on his car reminding him this was a Chevron town. "Beat it," the note concluded. Last week, a divided City Council took that advice and fired him, less than 10 months after appointing him to the job. Willmore said that the council gave no reason for his dismissal but that he felt the council had fired him "in retaliation about Chevron.

Information technology firm Hewlett-PackardCo.renewed its lease of an entire building in El Segundo, real estate brokers said. The 47,576-square-foot building at 621 Hawaii St. is the regional office of Palo Alto computer maker Hewlett-Packard, according to brokerage Jones Lang LaSalle. The landlord is Asset Management Consultants Inc. of Mission Hills. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but experts familiar with the South Bay real estate market valued it at about $6 million.

Principal James Garza strode onto El Segundo High's North Quad, tennis courts behind him, and pointed to the school's bell tower. "That's the shot," he said with a proud smile, recalling a scene from the 1955 movie "Blackboard Jungle" that was filmed on campus. The picture, which starred Glenn Ford and Sidney Poitier, was one of the first shot at the high school.

If El Segundo is unhappy with its image (Nov. 15), perhaps officials should change the name to El Primero. GARY A. ROBB Los Angeles

Gene Simmons knows a thing or two about night life, and now he has a new gig: bar owner. The KISS leader is one of three principals behind the recently remodeled, music-focused craft beer spot Rock & Brews, and keeping his attention at one of its outdoor bar stools is no easy task. Two sentences into explaining why chefs are the new rock stars, a pair of onlookers capture Simmons' eye. He stops the interview, and waves two young women into the sidewalk-adjacent El Segundo beer garden.

The upscale Spectrum Athletic Clubs is selling its Texas locations and returning its focus to Southern California, where it plans to add to its dozen gyms. The El Segundo company said it agreed to sell its 11 San Antonio area locations to Gold's Gym International Inc. in Irving, Texas, but was still working out final details Friday. It would not disclose the sale price but said it expected to close the deal by the end of the month. Bud Rockhill, Spectrum's president, said Friday that the San Antonio market was becoming saturated and that the potential for growth there was limited.

A few months after he was hired as El Segundo's city manager, Doug Willmore learned that his efforts to force Chevron, the town's oldest employer, to pay higher taxes had made him some enemies. He found a note on his car reminding him this was a Chevron town. "Beat it," the note concluded. Last week, a divided City Council took that advice and fired him, less than 10 months after appointing him to the job. Willmore said that the council gave no reason for his dismissal but that he felt the council had fired him "in retaliation about Chevron.

Doug Willmore wasn't on the job long as El Segundo's city manager before discovering just how deep the town's loyalty runs to the oil giant that put it on the map. After the city began discussing a big tax increase for the Chevron oil refinery a few months ago, he walked out of City Hall to find a note on the windshield of his car. "This is a Chevron town and we owe our existence to them and should be grateful. Get that through your head," it read. The note ended: "Beat it!

"Well, here it is," said aerospace engineer William Ailor as he paused next to the hulking metal shells arrayed along the plaza outside a visitors entrance at Aerospace Corp.'s El Segundo headquarters. The stuff is junk. But, Ailor said, it's no ordinary junk. This garbage has traveled to space and back. A 150-pound hollow sphere of blackened titanium is all that remains of a motor casing from a Delta II rocket that fell to Earth in 2001, landing in the Saudi Arabian desert west of Riyadh.

The most archetypal American small town in Los Angeles County may be El Segundo, with its neighborly mid-century vibe. Visitors arriving on Main Street pass stately brick-and-stone El Segundo High School, a popular filming location, before encountering a large wooden directory erected by the Kiwanis Club that lists the city's 11 churches. Around the corner at Wendy's Place Cafe, there are framed jigsaw puzzles of Saturday Evening Post covers drawn by Norman Rockwell hanging on the paneled wall above the milkshake machine.

The party was already plenty glam, especially for El Segundo. Tall, beautiful women everywhere. Free-flowing booze and plates of hot sausages. Rock stars from Velvet Revolver and the Village People. Lots of - maybe too much - leather. And then Gene Simmons appeared. It wasn't even just the fact that he appeared, it was how he did it - on a ledge high above his guests' heads in the concert hall-esque dining area of Rock & Brews, his new El Segundo restaurant. (This was before another spectacle later in the week where he professed on Twitter to have NOT endorsed Mitt Romney.

An El Segundo office building occupied by Mattel Inc.'s Global Design Center was sold to New York investment firm Angelo, Gordon & Co. for $45 million. Angelo, Gordon bought the 192,053-square-foot building at 2031 E. Mariposa Ave. from Los Angeles real estate investment trust Kilroy Realty Corp., property brokerage Jones Lang LaSalle said. The site near Sepulveda Boulevard and the Century Freeway consists of nearly 10 acres on a flag-shaped lot. It was originally constructed in the 1950s as a distribution building and includes a sizable loading area and space for parking and trailer storage, the brokerage said.

Toy giant Mattel Inc. said Monday that Robert Eckert, its chief executive, would retire at the end of the year and be succeeded by Chief Operating Officer Bryan Stockton. Eckert, 57, has served as CEO of the El Segundo company for 11 years and will stay on as chairman of the board. His successor, Stockton, 58, will take over beginning Jan. 1. "We're delighted to have an experienced and proven leader like Bryan assume the CEO position," said Christopher Sinclair, an independent director for Mattel, in a statement about Stockton.