The owners of Century Business Center, a 1.4 million-square-foot industrial park in Hawthorne which was built over four stages from 1939 to 1968, have received a $63.2 million refinancing loan from UBS Bank. Zelman Development purchased the property in 2010 for $40 million dollars, and in 2018 unsuccessfully tried to sell it for $180 million. A $57 million note issued by AIG in 2015 was due to mature this September.
Last renovated in 2008, the complex spans 43 acres and is located roughly 6 miles from the Los Angeles International Airport in the city of Hawthorne, which is bordered by Inglewood to the north, Redondo Beach to the south, El Segundo to the west, and Gardena to the east. Both the 105 and 405 Freeways are within three miles of the park, making it a relatively accessible and centrally located South Bay site.
Located at 3901 Jack Northrop Avenue, the center has seven buildings, 36 loading loading doors, and currently lists SpaceX’s Starlink as a tenant (despite SpaceX’s recent move to Texas). In a Los Angeles Business Journal article, senior adviser at Ann Arbor, Michigan-based aerospace consulting firm AeroDynamic Advisory Liang Sim predicted that because the Elon Musk-helmed company has so many Californians working on the Falcon 9 rocket, it’s unlikely that the company will give up its Hawthorne location. “It doesn’t matter where their headquarters are. They will have a strong presence in both [Texas and California],” Sim said.
The Century Business Center is part of Zelman Development’s over 10 million square feet of real estate, a portfolio which it has been building since the 1960s. According to Bloomberg, “Zelman develops properties such as industrial facilities, suburban office buildings, airport parking structures, and large retail shopping centers.”
