Panorama City, CA

This week, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced $825 million in funding for new affordable and permanent supportive housing developments across the state. The money, which will go toward 58 communities and created a total of 9,550 new homes, comes through a new streamlined application process geared toward accelerating new projects and cutting costs.

In a statement, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass indicated that $196.2 million of that total is set to go towards 27 projects located within the City and County of Los Angeles. Those include:

21300 Devonshire

Abode Communities

The project from Abode Communities, Mercy Housing, and LA Family Housing a four-story apartment building consisting of 99 apartments for unhoused persons, one manager's unit, and parking for 11 vehicles at street level to 21300 Devonshire Street in Chatsworth. The state award includes $13.7 million in funding.

910 Wetherly Drive

Google Maps

Planned by West Hollywood Community Housing Corporation, the project would bring 89 units for low- and moderate-income households to a site at 910 Wetherly Drive in the City of West Hollywood. WHCHC was awarded $4.3 million by the state.

West LA VA - MacArthur Field B

Core Affordable Housing, LLC

Core Affordable Housing, LLC has secured $21.8 million in funding for a new supportive housing for veterans at Macarthur Field B at the massive VA Campus. Plans call for a total of 75 apartments - including 74 units for formerly homeless veterans.

Red Tail Crossing

KFA Architecture

Now under construction at 8333 Airport Boulevard, the new development from Community Corp. of Santa Monica, the project will consist of a new four-story edifice featuring 102 one-, two-, and three-bedroom residential units. The state has awarded $6.5 million to the project.

1634 20th Street

Los Angeles-based non-profit Venice Community Housing Corp. is set to receive nearly $4.3 million from the state for its new apartment building at 1634 20th Street in the City of Santa Monica. The proposed project would consist of a new seven-story edifice featuring 78 apartments above subterranean parking for 26 vehicles.

828 Anaheim

In Wilmington, Flyaway Homes and Holos Communities are slated to receive $13.8 million in state funds for 828 Anaheim Street, a proposed modular five-story, 50-unit apartment building.

728 Lagoon

Flyaway Homes and Holos Communities will also receive $11.3 million for a second Wilmington project - a proposed 40-unit apartment complex at 728 Lagoon Avenue.

Western Landing

Days after setting the ball in motion for new bond financing, Abode Communities has been awarded $1.5 million for Western Landing, a proposed 81-unit supportive housing complex at 25820 S. Western Avenue in Harbor City.

Baldwin Park Affordable Housing

In the City of Baldwin Park, the Cesar Chavez Foundation is poised for $2.8 million in state funds for a new project which would bring 51 apartments to a site located at 4109 and 4113 Downing Avenue.

87th & Western

Innovative Housing Opportunities and EAH Housing are slated for $7.5 million in state funding for 87th & Western, a proposed 168-unit apartment complex which would rise just south of Manchester Avenue in South Los Angeles.

Chavez Gardens

Abode Communities is set for $3.8 million in funding for Chavez Gardens, a proposed project which would bring 110 apartments and 3,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space to a Metro-owned site at 2518-2536 E Cesar E Chavez Avenue in Boyle Heights.

Estrella Azul

A Community of Friends will receive $2.3 million for Estrella Azul, a proposed expansion of the historic Las Palomas property at 2201 E. 1st Street in Boyle Heights, which would add a new four-story structure featuring 80 apartments and supportive services in a basement level.

Watts Station

Nearly $5 million has been awarded to a development team led by Thomas Safran & Associates for the construction of Watts Station, a proposed project next to the Metro stop of the same name. The funding will go toward the construction of 87 residential units.

The Pano

L.A. Family Housing is slated for $23.9 million in funding for The Pano, a proposed adaptive reuse project which would convert at motel at 8209 N. Sepulveda Boulevard in Panorama City into 91 homes.

The Rigby

Abbey Road, Inc. has been awarded almost $3.8 million for construction of The Rigby, a proposed four-story building featuring 64 apartments at 15314 W. Rayen Street in the North Hills community.

Jordan Downs Phase S6

The Michaels Organization will receive $6.5 million for Phase S6 of the Jordan Downs redevelopment, creating a total of 100 new homes. The overall $1-billion plan for the public housing complex will ultimately result in the construction of 1,400 residential units - double the 700 which previously stood on the site.

Cudahy Seniors

The state has awarded $6.7 million to National CORE and Prima Development for construction of a new 140-unit senior affordable housing complex at 4610 Santa Ana Street in the City of Cudahy.

Locke Lofts

The Locke Lofts, a 150-unit complex which represents the latest phase of the massive Enlightenment Plaza project from Flexible PSH Solutions, was awarded $6.9 million in funding.

Prisma Artist Lofts

National CORE will receive just over $4.5 million for the Prisma Artist Lofts, a proposed 75-unit complex which would rise at 501 E. Mission Boulevard in Pomona.

Union at Echo Park

The state has awarded $4.5 million to Related California for Union at Echo Park, a new 108-unit housing complex which would rise from a city-owned property just south of Sunset Boulevard along the east side of Glendale Boulevard.

Metro at Florence

Meta Housing Corp. will see $6.6 million in funding for Metro at Florence, a project which calls for redeveloping the Florence Car Wash at 7220 Maie Avenue in Florence-Firestone with 160 apartments.

Manchester Urban Homes

Abode Communities and Neighborhood Housing Services of L.A. County have been awarded nearly $3.9 million would rise from a 2.7 acres of land at the northwest corner of 88th Street and Broadway. Plans call for the construction of total of 122 residential units

Downtown Women's Center

A planned expansion of the Downtown Women's Center, which would build 98 apartments on a parking lot at 5th and San Pedro Streets, was awarded nearly $4.1 million in state funding.

7024 Broadway

The Weingart Center has secured nearly $2 million in funding for a new project which would bring 52 apartments to a site at 7024 S. Broadway in South Los Angeles.

Menlo Avenue Apartments

The state has awarded $3 million to Omni America, LLC for the construction of the Menlo Avenue Apartments, which would bring 128 residential units to a site at 1224 Menlo Avenue in Pico-Union.

Harmony Senior Housing

A team led by Domus Development will receive $3.6 million from the state for the Harmony Senior Apartments, a proposed project with 84 residential units.

Toyon Gardens

Brilliant Corners has received almost $2.6 million for the construction of Toyon Gardens, a 78-unit housing complex in the City of Gardena.

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Looking for affordable housing? Visit lahousing.lacity.org/aahr and housing.lacounty.gov

Over nine seasons of The Office, 201 episodes of the incredibly popular show aired. During the show's run on television and in the years since, The Office's most dedicated fans have never seemed to tire of hearing more about how the show was produced.

As a result of how much fans of The Office care about the show, podcasts about the series have become immensely popular. Most notably, The Office Deep Dive and The Office Ladies have both become highly successful.

Of course, there are several reasons why those two podcasts are popular. After all, their hosts can debunk fan theories and talk about what it was like to film the show. After all, Jenna Fischer, Brian Baumgartner, and Angela Kinsey spent endless hours filming The Office.

Now that fans can listen to those actors talk about The Office, many of them have learned for the first time that the show wasn't filmed on a soundstage. Instead, The Office was filmed in a very real office building. Once fans learn that news, many of them are left wondering what has happened to that building since The Office finished filming.

Why Was The Office Filmed In A Real Building?

For people who've never worked in the entertainment business, it can be hard to understand why any show or movie isn't filmed in real locations. After all, viewers can often feel it when media is filmed in places that are too polished, so why not produce media in real places?

Related: The Office: Every Job Title Each Main Character Had

In reality, there are a lot of reasons why shows and movies are filmed on soundstages. After all, real locations often don't have the space for the equipment needed to film major movies or TV shows. On top of that, it can be very hard to control things like nature in real locations.

With that in mind, some people may wonder why The Office was filmed in a real building. What those fans may have forgotten was that The Office was supposed to feel like it was filmed for a documentary.

As series star Angela Kinsey once explained during an episode of the Office Ladies podcast, filming in a real building played a key role in the show feeling like a documentary.

“A lot of times on sets, they actually build the office so if they wanna film and get a certain camera angle, they can move a wall. On our show, because it was in an actual office building, you just had to work with it. And it sort of really lent itself to the documentary style that all the shots weren’t going to look pretty.”

What Happened To The Building Where The Office Was Filmed?

In the years since The Office's finale aired for the first time, many of the show's fans have gone back to rewatch the show over and over. As a result, it is only natural for those fans to feel like they have spent hours in the Scranton Business Park.

Related: 15 Questions The Office Fans Are Still Asking

While The Office fans accept that the show's cast members have gone on to other projects, the idea of something else going on in the building where the show was filmed feels wrong. Worse yet, the idea that the building looks different from the way it used to during the filming process is even more disconcerting.

With that in mind, The Office fans are likely to be very interested in learning what has happened to the building they knew as the Scranton Business Park.

Unsurprisingly, the outside of the Building where The Office was filmed mostly looks the same as it used to. However, the biggest difference is the word Quixote can be seen in huge letters on the side of the building. That stands for the company that operates there, Quixote Studios.

Before the building became the home of that Quixote Studios, it was previously known as Chandler Valley Center Studios and that name was on the side of the building.

On top of the huge name on the side of the building, another change that has been made can be seen on the hedges that line the fence that closes off the parking lot.

Related: This Actor Was Originally Preferred To Steve Carell For The Role Of Michael Scott In 'The Office'

On the hedges, there are now two signs. The first of those signs states there is no loitering, soliciting, or trespassing. The second warns that the parking lot is for private use only and that vehicles that shouldn't be there will be towed. Unsurprisingly, people still stand outside the fence and have their photos taken in front of the building.

According to Google, Quixote Studios which is located at 13927 Saticoy Street Panorama City, CA remains open for business as of this writing.

In 2020, The Dirt published an article about what happened to the building where The Office was filmed. According to their report, the building houses two soundstages and production offices on the inside.

On The Office's wikipage, the soundstages inside the building are described in greater detail. While Wiki pages can't be relied on to be accurate, the description of the soundstages gives fans an idea of what is inside the building where The Office was filmed.

"Designed to produce the finest commercials, sitcoms and movies, they offer two studios, one with over 20,000 square feet of space, and the other featuring over 18,000 feet of space. Both studios feature state of the art Cycloramas and 33 to 35 foot ceilings for maximum production space."

"With over 4800 Amps of power at your disposal, you will have power to spare. Maximum comfort provided while filming with 175 tons of air conditioning. The complex also features the convenience of parking for over 300 vehicles to accommodate your needs."

Based on all the available information, it seems like the building where The Office was filmed is still used to produce media. While that appears to have remained the same, the interior and exterior of the building have obviously gone through changes.

NASW-CA cannot wait to share space with you at our first in-person Lobby Days Conference in four years! On Sunday, April 16 we will be joined by hundreds of current and future social workers who are ready to advocate for issues that affect social work, our clients, and our communities. As part of our Conference, we are proud to announce that Senator Caroline Menjivar, MSW will be joining us as our Keynote Speaker. Be sure to register to hear from Senator Menjivar and other leaders in legislative advocacy in April.

About Senator Caroline Menjivar, MSW

Senator Caroline Menjivar represents California’s 20th District, Burbank and the San Fernando Valley. She holds an MSW from UCLA and has vast public service experience within the very communities she now represents as Senator.

As a young lesbian, who could not come out to her family, Menjivar struggled in finding resources or safe spaces for LGTBQ+ youth. The lack of familial acceptance and her personal experience in navigating her sexual orientation motivated Menjivar to be the representative that she yearned for as a teenager and young adult. Upon return from active duty in the Marine Corps, Menjivar went back to school. When she took her first Sociology class she was hooked, eventually falling in love with fighting for social justice.

While attending college, Menjivar worked as an EMT and witnessed the lack of comprehensive behavioral health services and flawed emergency responses to the mental health crises. During her time as a domestic violence therapist, responding to calls with LAPD, Menjivar found having a trained crisis therapist on the scene improved victim advocacy.

As a social worker Menjivar knows, when communities are supported with robust behavioral health resources, powered by a strong workforce of social workers and mental health professionals, people can overcome the obstacles they face in life. Social workers are always on the frontlines, doing the hard work, breaking barriers through advocacy, and seeking to lift-up communities with equitable and holistic solutions to today’s intersecting issues. They too need to be supported and uplifted to be able to continue to support our most vulnerable.

Senator Caroline Menjivar’s wife, Jocelyn Tapia, is in the mental health sector as well and is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. They reside in Panorama City with their two doggies.

Learn more about Caroline here.

We look forward to welcoming nearly 1,000 attendees and Senator Menjivar to the stage to share how social workers can break barriers and lead change together.

Although the San Fernando Valley is perhaps best known as the birthplace of car-centric suburban sprawl, it is also home to Panorama City, a meticulously planned community that from its start strove to create a balanced neighborhood consisting of residential, commercial and industrial land uses.

In its scope, scale and ambition, Panorama City outstripped Greater L.A.’s prewar attempts at creating master-planned neighborhoods.

It was the brainchild of Henry Kaiser, a shipbuilder keen to put his formidable industrial might, which had manufactured the famous Liberty cargo ships that transported U.S. goods around the world during World War II, to equally lucrative peacetime uses.

Along for the ride was Fritz Burns, a developer who had previously teamed with Kaiser to build a neighborhood of manufactured homes in Westchester. Burns saw the untapped potential of the semirural San Fernando Valley as a propitious locale in which to house the massive influx of new Angelenos thronging L.A. in the aftermath of the war.

Together they bought 400 acres of the former Panorama Ranch and engaged the architectural firm of Wurdeman & Becket — whose notable postwar works include General Petroleum’s downtown offices, Museum Square and the Pasadena Bullock’s — to design the community.

The plans for the new “city” called for 4,000 factory-built homes and 30 acres of commercial development. Propitiously located near an emerging manufacturing hub anchored by GM’s new plant in Van Nuys, Panorama City was an instant hit with former GIs and their families.

The neighborhood thrived for decades until the manufacturing downturn of the 1980s and 1990s, which saw the GM plant, a Carnation food laboratory and the Schlitz brewery, among others, shutter for good, putting thousands out of work and sending many of them fleeing the city for greener pastures.

Immigrants from across Latin America found a home in Panorama City during this era, drawn by its central San Fernando Valley location and affordable home prices.

More than 25 years later the lost high-paying manufacturing jobs have not been replaced, and Panorama City struggles to compete with other areas of the Valley in attracting investment and employment opportunities for its residents.

Neighborhood highlights

Affordable Valley living: Affordability is relative, but Panorama City offers home buyers the opportunity to purchase a sturdy postwar home for less than $500,000.

Green shoots: The planned mixed-use redevelopment of the old Montgomery Ward and other long-fallow commercial sites is slowly bringing new investment and jobs to the community.

The heart of the Valley: Panorama City is centrally located, with access to freeways, Metrolink, and Hollywood Burbank Airport, and Metro is now considering building a rail line through the area.

Neighborhood challenge

Postindustrial growing pains: Not unlike an old factory town struggling to reinvent itself when the plant closes down, Panorama City is still trying to find its economic footing.

Expert insight

“Panorama City is one of the densest areas in the Valley,” said Joseph Fernandez, a real estate agent with eight years of experience in the area. “But that’s a good thing.”

He said there are always plenty of houses on the market, and single-family homes and apartments offer affordable options for incoming residents — many of whom are young.

“You’ll find a lot of postwar builds, but lately there’s been a focus on adding more mixed-use developments,” Fernandez said.

The biggest project, a 9-acre development called the Icon at Panorama City, recently received the green light from the City Council. With a $150-million budget, it plans to add 60,000 square feet of commercial space and 675 residential units.

Market snapshot

In the 91402 ZIP Code, based on 15 sales, the median sales price for single-family homes in April was $500,000, up 16.3% year over year, according to CoreLogic.

Report card

There are nine public schools in Panorama City. Primary Academy for Success scored the highest on the 2013 Academic Performance Index, at 827.

Two others scored above 800: Ranchito Avenue Elementary, at 810 and Burton Street Elementary, at 807. The area’s high school, Panorama High, scored 680.

Times staff writer Jack Flemming contributed to this report.

A Filipino American father and adult daughter were found electrocuted to death early Monday, January 25 in Panorama City, California.

Firefighters were called to the 14700 block of Tupper Street, near Cedros Avenue, just before 3 a.m. where a man and a woman were found dead in a shed outside their home, according to CBS Los Angeles.

The victims were identified by the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office as 53-year-old Ferdinand Tejada and his daughter, 20-year-old Janina Reyn Tejada.

Both of them were from Dasmariñas, Cavite in the Philippines before moving to Southern California, according to the younger Tejada’s Facebook page.

Janina, who was a student at West Coast University, had a goal of becoming a registered nurse and nurse practitioner.

The Los Angeles Fire Department said Ferdinand Tejada was electrocuted when he tried to move a downed electrical wire that he was investigating outside. His daughter was also electrocuted while trying to save him.

“She came in contact with the water and the water served as a conductor. Our firefighters waited for the Department of Fire and water to come cut power because he was beyond medical assistance as was his daughter,” LAFD Firefighter David Ortiz told CBS Los Angeles.

It had been raining at the time of the incident, but it was not clear what caused the wires to come down.

“LADWP is saddened to report that two individuals were electrocuted while coming in contact with downed power lines,” said the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

“These two tragic deaths are a sobering reminder that live electrical wires can and will often result in death. Don’t get near or touch a downed power line,” it said, urging residents to stay away and call 911 if they see a downed line.

The department also said that anyone coming across a victim lying near, or in contact with, downed wires or electrical equipment should keep a safe distance and not attempt to touch the victim.

“LADWP is working with law enforcement in their investigation of this incident,” it said in a statement.

A GoFundMe page has been set up by a friend to help the Tejada family. (AJPress)