Sterling to Move to Missile Plant Site in West Hills

Sterling Software Inc. said Monday that it has agreed to relocate its information management group from Warner Center to a 135,000-square-foot building in West Hills on the site of a former missile plant.

The software company signed a $35-million, 10-year lease after considering moving outside of Los Angeles to Calabasas, according to people familiar with negotiations. Instead, Sterling will move into the West Hills Corporate Village, a 30-acre complex located at the western edge of the San Fernando Valley. Brokerage Julien J. Studley Inc. represented both parties in the transaction.

Sterling will join the Rocketdyne Propulsion & Power division of Boeing Co., which recently agreed to lease 170,000 square feet at the business park. The park is owned by Beverly Hills-based Regent Properties and Shamrock Holdings of California.

West Hills Corporate Village sits on part of a former, 86-acre Hughes Aircraft missile plant, which was broken up into smaller parcels when the facility was closed in 1994. Other sections of the plant include a 20-acre campus for the DeVry Institute of Technology and a Los Angeles Police Department dispatch center.

In February, another 30.5-acre chunk of the plant was acquired by Trammel Crow Co. for $23 million. The company said it planned a major overhaul of its section of the facility, which includes 372,000 square feet of space.

The Trammel Crow section of the property briefly served as the headquarters for the now defunct Coast Federal Bank.