Former GM building goes on the market

[Ming]

Former GM building goes on the market
L.A. Daily News
By Gregory J. Wilcox
Staff Writer

VAN NUYS -- One of the last components of the huge former General Motors Corp. facility is on the market for the first time, officials said Friday.

The 220,000-square-foot building on 10 acres at 8000 Van Nuys Blvd., where seats were once installed in automobiles, will either be sold or leased, probably to a manufacturing company, said Brett Warner, a principal at Lee & Associates LA North/Ventura Inc., the commercial real estate company representing the owner, Dallas-based Lincoln Properties.

Until late last year, the big automaker used the facility, built in the mid-1950s, as an emission control laboratory and storage for the EV-1, the company's electric car.

The automaker began building the plant in 1946 and it opened a year later, turning out Chevrolet trucks and what were known as B cars. The facility went through several expansions and in 1970 began producing the Chevrolet Monte Carlo. In 1981 it was retooled to produce the Pontiac Firebird and Chevy Camaro. It finally closed in August 1992.

One year before it closed, it had an annual payroll of $136 million.

The GM building now on the market is just south of The Plant, a retail and industrial complex that was built on another section of the old automobile manufacturing facility.

There are still 15 acres of the original 180 acres once owned by General Motors that can be developed. Warner said this would be an ideal manufacturing facility.

"General Motors built this to East Coast standards. It's got $2 million to $3 million of infrastructure that's very beneficial to a manufacturer. They spared no expense putting money into the building," he said.

The parcel is centrally located in the San Fernando Valley and adjacent to a Metrolink station.

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[BigAls87Z28]

First Norwood, then Ste.T, now Van Nuys. All the fbody plants are now gone. Could it be the start of a new begining?