TRW to Leave The City, Move Across the Street

ORANGE —  TRW Inc. says it plans to move its massive information-services operation out of four buildings at The City to new quarters across the street.

A TRW official on Tuesday wouldn’t disclose how much space the company would lease, but local industry watchers put the figure at nearly 300,000 square feet. If the deal closes, it would be one of the larger recent leases in the county.

TRW said it had signed a letter of intent with IDM Inc., a Long Beach developer, to move its 1,200 employees in Orange to one or more new buildings that IDM will construct by early 1993 on the site of the Orange Drive-In. IDM officials declined to discuss the deal.

Until recently, TRW had been seeking considerably more space--at least 400,000 square feet--and was courted ardently by local landlords anxious to fill some of their nearly empty buildings.

But the Cleveland-based company has run into problems with its defense and space business in Redondo Beach, and the recession has hurt its credit-reporting business. A spokesman said the Orange operation has been shrinking through attrition, but there have been no major layoffs. Three TRW divisions have national headquarters in Orange: a unit that reports on the credit-worthiness of individuals and another that reports on businesses, and a division that sells lists of consumers to direct-marketing companies.

TRW is now seeking less office space--perhaps as little as 180,000 square feet, or roughly nine floors--rather than the 280,000 square feet it presently occupies at The City, according to William Durslag, first vice president at Tishman West Cos., TRW’s current landlord.

TRW possibly would need an additional 100,000 square feet in the new building for a computer center. The company wants to consolidate the center, now located in Anaheim, with its division offices.

The move would leave a big vacancy at The City. TRW has leased space there since 1978, most of it in one four-story building and two 10-story buildings.

“I don’t know how this deal will impact future development in this area,” Durslag said. Since 1988, when five big office towers opened about the same time in central Orange County, few new towers have been built in the area as the market digested all the new office space. Recently, office vacancy rates have shrunk but tight credit policies by banks--burned by bad real estate loans--have prevented developers from putting up another office tower.

Tishman West tried to persuade TRW to remain in its current buildings or move to new offices that Tishman would build at The City, Durslag said.

But TRW wanted a 10-year lease similar to what it got from IDM. Tishman considered a 10-year deal not long enough and “too risky” to justify constructing a new building, Durslag explained.