Factory Conversions

The year is 1995. Legions of electric cars traverse roads that crisscross the San Fernando Valley by day and silently recharge their batteries in residential garages at night. A high-tech plant in Burbank turns out 25,000 of these non-polluting vehicles annually. Hundreds of Los Angeles residents, many of them retrained aerospace employees, work at the facility; hundreds more make components at a network of small firms throughout the Valley. A Hollywood fantasy? Not necessarily.

Unocal Corp. said Friday that it will spend $515 million to increase gasoline production at its Wilmington refinery and upgrade equipment to meet new federal clean air standards. The project, to be completed in late 1993--subject to regulatory approvals--would boost current gasoline production by about 10% over the current level of roughly 80,000 barrels a day, said Unocal spokesman Barry Lane.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency identified pulp mills as a significant source of toxic water pollution in 1985, and steadily since then, environmentalists have pressed the industry to find a way to make softwood pulp without using chlorine. Chlorine bleaches wood pulp to a brilliant, commercially appealing white without weakening the fibers--but in the process, it combines with compounds present in wood to make toxic chemicals of the infamous organo-chlorine family.

They came bearing the expertise and technology that has built jet fighters, tank simulators and electronic circuits. But could these same people now build subway and rail passenger cars? "This is kind of a new world to us," said Anthony J. Rogers, sales director for Ontic, an aerospace engineering and manufacturing firm in North Hollywood that makes hydraulic systems for jet fighters. "We're looking to see if we can take what we know . . . and carry that over to the rail car industry."

Hoping to capitalize on the critical need for movie production facilities in Southern California, a developer has announced plans to convert an old shampoo factory here into a state-of-the-art Hollywood-style studio. Robert E. Selan, 42, an apartment and condominium developer, bought the 12-acre Redken Laboratories site last spring, planning to use it for a family sports center. But instead, he was persuaded that the massive former factory "is perfectly suited for filming," he said.

Local transit officials Thursday recommended the awarding of a $205-million contract for 72 Green Line cars to a U.S.-German team that promises to open a Los Angeles plant that will be the nation's first modern manufacturer of rail cars. The award to Siemens Duewag Corp., a German company with a Sacramento facility, would create about 200 jobs in California and pump $17 million into the state's economy, company officials said.

Special Devices Inc., a longtime maker of components that trigger the Patriot and Cruise missiles, now wants to put the boom in automobile air bags. Switching fields could give the Newhall-based company a much-needed boost. With defense budget cuts trimming its market, Special Devices has seen its aerospace sales skid 13% from fiscal 1989, to $17.5 million last year. Its earnings are lagging, and so is its stock, which closed Friday at $10 a share, about where it was two years ago.

Facing a crowd of skeptical, and at times hostile, sailors and civilian military workers who stand to lose their jobs when five Bay Area naval facilities are shut down, President Clinton on Friday promised "aggressive, tough and unrelenting" efforts to help the area's dislocated workers and depressed communities. "I make this pledge to you," Clinton said. "The men and women who won the Cold War will not be left out in the cold by a grateful nation."

About a quarter-century ago, when what is now Warner Center was cornfields and cow pastures, a young real estate developer named Robert D. Voit heard about the Warner family's plans to turn its land into an urban center with shopping malls, offices, condominiums and manufacturing. "I thought, 'Isn't that a bizarre idea? How could one be so crazy as to dream of high-rises in the middle of cornfields?' " Voit recalled.

The nationwide slump in commercial real estate is reviving developer interest in an old but challenging option for getting rid of costly, unwanted buildings: converting them to apartments, stores and other uses for which there is greater demand.