Interest High in Complex Despite Building Delay

El Nino rains may have delayed construction of the Conejo Valley’s first speculative industrial complex in 10 years, but they apparently have done nothing to dampen the interest of would-be owners of units within that development.

Concrete pads finally will be poured this week at the Thousand Oaks Grande Vista Business Park. The 145,000-square-foot project, at 3225 Grande Vista Drive, originally was scheduled for completion by June but now is pegged for a late September to early October opening.

Despite the change in plans, 20 of the 22 units, ranging from 5,600 to 8,000 square feet, already are in escrow.

“We’ve gotten business owners who have pride of ownership--this is a kind of condo-type project where they own the land and the building and everything else is common area,” said Bob Pettit of Bob Pettit Commercial Realty, which is marketing the units for the property owner, Burke Real Estate Group of Santa Ana.

“They are all sorts of entrepreneur-type people,” he said. “They are guys who started their business, have been somewhat successful, and they want to grow. But they don’t really need 100,000-square-foot buildings.”

Pettit was involved with the project even before the Orange County development firm came on the scene. He marketed the site when it was owned by the Silagi Development & Management Co. of Thousand Oaks.

In scouting for potential Grande Vista business owners, Pettit said, he mainly has targeted Conejo Valley-based high-tech entrepreneurs.

“We didn’t realize there were so many of these entrepreneurs around,” he said. “But we knew some lived in the area, and we figured with the Small Business Administration rates pretty low for them, this might be a good shot for us. When you look at the [development], there really hasn’t been any building with this size range here in a long time, where the smallest unit is 5,000 square feet.”

Pettit would not identify the Grande Vista buyers while the properties remain in escrow. But he said the current list of prospective owners represents a wide range of high-profile industries.

“We’ve got an aerospace company--an entrepreneurial guy who’s been in business for years and was very interested in the image this site would project for him,” Pettit said. “We’ve got a guy who manufactures testing equipment for airplane engines; there’s a microelectronics company out of Westlake.”

Others on the list include an environmental testing firm, a Pasadena biotech company and a company that designs high-tech trade show booths.