Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES-The local office of Interior Architects, one of the largest interior design firms in the world, signs a 10-year lease at the same site but on a different floor. The transaction is valued in excess of $3 million.

LOS ANGELES-Qantas Airways, the airline company servicing the South Pacific, relocates its headquarters for the Americas/Pacific region. The company signs a seven-year lease deal in Howard Hughes Center

LOS ANGELES-The publishing house giant Hachette Filipacchi Media has expanded its Los Angeles office across from the Wilshire Courtyard office complex. The company has signed a five-year, $1.6-million agreement for 12,500 sf.

LOS ANGELES-Juergen Bartels, CEO of the London-based Le Meridien Hotels and Resorts, told a small crowd gathered in the Garden Room of his Le Meridien at Beverly Hills that the independent luxury hotel group has its sights set on becoming the number-one brand in the international hotel trade by 2004.

LONG BEACH, CA-American Residential Investment Trust has entered into an arbitration agreement with Long Beach Mortgage Company (LBMC). On Jan. 4, 2001, the company had filed a lawsuit, seeking to recover damages arising from its purchase of a pool of residential mortgages from Lehman Capital, a Division of Lehman Brothers Holdings.

LOS ANGELES-National commercial real estate services firm Studley has completed an office relocation deal for Salomon Smith Barney and represented Charter Communications in a build-to-suit purchase of an office center.

ENCINO, CA-A private partnership acquires 32,000-sf office building at 16000 Ventura Blvd. Brokerage firm NAI Capital Commercial will move into the complex next year.

SAN FERNANDO, CA-Acey Decy, which services the entertainment industry, buys a 58,000-sf industrial building here and will move its 40 workers from North Hollywood next month. The deal reflects a growing appetite for space-users in the area to own rather than rent.