They’re vacant on paper, but occupied on film.

Brentwood Capital Partners, owners of the former US Borax building, have found a temporary use for the vacant 117,000-square-foot building as they wait for a more permanent tenant: filming.

And they’re not the only ones. In a town where more than a fourth of the office space is vacant, several property owners are soliciting production companies to make extra cash while they wait for a long-term tenant to sign on.

Film liaison Monica Harrison, who owns Santa Clarita-based L.A. Film Locations and works with Brentwood on the Borax building on Tourney Road, said she sometimes bumps into commercial realtors showing properties to potential long-term tenants while she’s showing production companies potential filming locations for their television show, commercial or movie.

“As you can imagine, having revenue come in is great,” said David Gottlieb, vice president of West Los Angeles-based Brentwood Capital Partners. Gottlieb said his company doesn’t release revenue details. “We’re happy to expose the building to the production community, and we’re happy to bring business to Santa Clarita.”

City of Santa Clarita officials are more than welcoming, too.

“Filming is a huge economic engine for Santa Clarita,” Economic Development Director Jason Crawford said.

The reason is twofold: the amount of money that comes in, and the jobs created for residents, Crawford said.

In 2009, filming brought $22 million to Santa Clarita, a 14-percent increase. About 7,000 of the local film industry’s employees are locals, too.

Santa Clarita Valley Locations owner Karen Bryden said she’s soliciting production companies to rent Bristol Farms’ former location in Bridgeport Marketplace, along with other vacant storefronts there.

But, she said it’s more common that production companies try to find occupied spaces for their shoots.

“If they’re calling for a vacant space, we can do that all day long in the Santa Clarita Valley,” Bryden said.

Harrison agreed.

“When I first got started, it was me knocking on doors,” Harrison said. “Now it’s word of mouth. They seek me out. I have lenders calling me from back East, with property they’ve foreclosed on and they’ve heard about me. It’s really just multiplied.”

The valley has always been a “well-kept secret” in the film industry, Bryden said. Over the years, with the city’s film department promoting filming here by making permits easy to get and offering incentives, Santa Clarita Valley has become a filming boomtown of sorts, and continues through the down economy, Harrison and Bryden agreed.

“It’s obviously a different real estate market so our goal is, we know that property managers’ and owners’ ultimate goal is to put a long term tenant in the space,” Bryden said. “But if we can make some interim income for the property owner, that’s found money.”