Industrial Building

A 31,000-square-foot industrial building at 8332 Osage Ave. has been sold by Anberns Ltd. to the partnership of Arcangeli & Messing in a transaction valued at $1 million negotiated for both parties by the Goodlick Co. The building will be occupied by AIR X Refrigeration Equipment Co.

When Laura Owens was looking for a studio that could double as an exhibition space for her first show in L.A. since 2003, she considered a variety of buildings. There was an out-of-business Glidden paint shop on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood and a small defunct church on Melrose nearby. But those spaces seemed too specific or loaded architecturally. So it was something of a revelation when she first visited 356 South Mission Road, a 12,000-square-foot stand-alone industrial building in Boyle Heights that had originally housed a lithography studio in the '40s and later served as storage space for pianos - including Liberace's.

More than 100 firefighters were needed to douse a blaze that raged through most of an industrial building Wednesday night, authorities said. The fire started shortly after 6:30 p.m. in the 11900 block of West Vose Street in a building registered to Doc Johnson, a company that distributes sex aids. It was extinguished about two hours later with no reported injuries.

A Colorado electric vehicle manufacturer has leased an industrial building in Chatsworth where it will assemble delivery trucks and utility vehicles. Boulder Electric Vehicle will occupy a 27,714-square-foot manufacturing building at 9655 Irondale Ave. in Chatsworth, real estate brokerage Jones Lang LaSalle said. Boulder Electric's new facility represents an expansion from its manufacturing facility in Boulder, Colo., the company said. The manufacturer is set to move in by September.

A mid-September start of construction is scheduled for a $2.7-million industrial building complex in the Valencia Industrial Center following acquisition of 2.5 acres by Tibbits Business Park. JDO & Associates of Woodland Hills, is architect, the Mackel Co. of North Hollywood, general contractor, and Daum/Johnstown American, marketing agent.

Citing continued demand for industrial space in and around Valencia, Investment Development Services of Los Angeles broke ground on a $13-million, 206,000-square-foot speculative industrial building in the third phase of its 50-acre Vista Business Park in the 28000 block of Avenue Williams in Valencia. "The Valencia-area market continues to enjoy steady demand for large, single-tenant industrial buildings," IDS managing director David Mgrublian said in an announcement.

An industrial area in the west end of Moorpark will soon have another building, a 10,092-square-foot office and warehouse for a local plumbing contractor. The Moorpark Planning Commission on Monday night approved plans for the building, which will house Precision Plumbing-Mechanical. The 25-employee company is now located one block away on Commerce Avenue. The one-acre construction site is on the east side of Gabbert Road, south of Poindexter Avenue, and will also contain a 30-space parking lot.

A 20,480-square-foot industrial building on 1.6 acres in San Diego has been sold for more than $1.45 million, according to Business Properties Brokerage Co., which handled the transaction. Gildred Development Co. sold the building, at 7520 Convoy Court, to Copy-Line Corp. of San Diego, a copier sales and distribution firm.

G.S.X. Corp. has purchased a 45,200-square-foot industrial building at 1830 Warner Ave., Santa Ana, for $1.6 million from Milo Corp. The seller was represented by Lee & Associates Commercial Real Estate Services of Orange and the buyer by C.W. Whittier of Boston.

A 194,000-square-foot industrial building at 10511 Valley Blvd., El Monte, has been purchased as an investment by Cal Fed Syndications of Los Angeles for $5.8 million. The transaction was negotiated by the Seeley Co. for the buyer and the seller, the 10511 Valley Partnership.

The Beverly Hills headquarters building of Live Nation Entertainment Inc., the world's largest concert promoter, was sold by former entertainment mogul Michael Ovitz to a New York landlord for $20 million. Tishman Speyer bought the renovated industrial building near City Hall from Ovitz and his partners. The property at 9348 Civic Center Drive was built in 1925 as an ice and cold storage plant and is still known as the Ice House. It was converted into offices in the mid-1990s. Live Nation, which merged with rival Ticketmaster last year, has been the main tenant in the four-story Ice House since 2006 and plans to stay there until at least 2020, according to real estate data provider CoStar.

One of the largest industrial buildings near John Wayne Airport in Orange County has been purchased out of receivership by Alliance Commercial Partners for $23.1 million. The building at 2001 E. Dyer Road in Santa Ana had been used as corporate headquarters by GT Bicycles and 3 PL Global. It is now mostly empty. Alliance paid about half of the previous sale price for the building, said Bob O'Neill, director of acquisitions for the Lakewood, Colo., real estate investment company.

The pornography industry, like the rest of Hollywood, has been buffeted by the economic downturn, the falloff in DVD sales and a cornucopia of free content on the Internet. Still, for better or worse, the adult entertainment business remains alive and well in the San Fernando Valley, where thousands of films are shot every year in warehouses and private homes. One of the 10 busiest sites for on-location filming in Los Angeles last year was a two-story industrial building in Chatsworth operated by Penthouse Studios, a spinoff of the adult magazine.

The drills, saws and sanders that fell silent during the economic slowdown are beginning to whir again. For the first time in years, U.S. builders are hiring laborers. The nation's construction industry added 14,000 jobs nationwide in April, according to the Labor Department, marking the first back-to-back monthly gains in that sector since 2006. In all, 29 states gained construction jobs that month, according to data released Friday by the Associated General Contractors of America.

At the launch center where the U.S. had dominated space travel over the last half-century, President Obama on Thursday laid out a new vision for the nation's space ambitions, focusing on future deep-space missions rather than a return trip to the moon. The proposal differs significantly from the austere agenda that Obama laid out in January when he terminated the moon program. Critics then attacked his decision as a historic withdrawal of U.S. ambitions in space travel just as China and other developing nations are gearing up to retrace U.S. steps on the moon.

I just got back from riding down the bike path along the Los Angeles River, and I'd like to write some Whitmanesque stanzas about the atomic oneness of nature, but the diesel fumes have aggravated my asthma and my ears are still ringing from the trucks blaring past on the Golden State Freeway. When John Muir wrote about the effects of time spent in the wilderness -- "the galling harness of civilization drops off, and wounds heal ere we are aware" -- he wasn't thinking about the L.A. River.

An explosion leveled a storage warehouse at an industrial plant in Ravenna and shook the ground more than a mile away, officials said. No injuries were reported. The processing plant, which punches holes in metal products, has 117 employees -- all off because of the Labor Day holiday, authorities said.

A sluggish but powerful spring storm stalled over Southern California on Monday, bringing heavy rain that snarled traffic during the morning and evening rush hours. Cloudy to partly cloudy skies are expected today and Wednesday before another weather system brings the chance of more rain late Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. The National Weather Service forecast calls for some clouds, but no rain, for Easter Sunday. In Orange County, Monday's rainfall ranged from .20 inches in Villa Park to 1.