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Newport Beach’s Newest Hotel Hub for RE Execs

Looking to do a real estate deal and need a partner? Keep an eye on the crowd at the recently opened Lido House hotel in Newport Beach, which during a recent weekend visit to its Mayor’s Table restaurant hosted more than its share of real estate execs among a busy crowd.

A trip there this month found Walnut-based Shea Homes president Bert Selva, Newport Beach-based Birtcher Development’s Brandy Birtcher and Santa Ana-based Nexus Development’s Cory Alder among those in attendance, along with R.D. Olson Development’s Bob Olson, whose Newport Beach-based firm built the 130-room Marriott Autograph-collection branded property, the city’s first new hotel in a decade.

Birtcher, in a way, is a permanent guest at Mayor’s Table. He’s one of a few local boatmen and friends of Olson whose pics adorn the restaurant’s walls. Others include Ed Cook, co-owner of Costa Mesa investor and developer McCarthy Cook.

Mayor’s Table chef Riley Huddleston said Olson—who modeled the hotel in part on his own Balboa Island home—has been a mainstay at the restaurant since the property opened.

The hotel, built on the site of the former Newport Beach city hall, is one of several additions to that part of Newport Beach that I profiled in the May 14 Business Journal. One notable addition that wasn’t in the feature, especially for brew lovers, is a project under way across the street from Olson’s hotel at Bayside Shopping Center. It’s being headed by the cover star of the May 7 issue of the Business Journal, Mobilitie LLC’s Gary Jabara.

The telecom-real estate-publishing exec, whose firms are based in Newport Beach, detailed in the story his plans to conquer the beer distribution market with his new firm, Chihuahua Cerveza. The company aims to produce nearly a million cases of its Mexican-style beer per year by the end of 2019.

Signs up at Bayside Shopping Center—a Jabara property where leasing is headed by another one of his investments, brokerage Villa Real Estate—say a Chihuahua Cerveza brewery is in the works there.

Maybe Jabara can work a deal with Olson to serve his beer at Lido House’s just-opened rooftop bar Top Side? On name alone, Lido House General Manager Adam Beer would seem up to the task of getting the deal done.

Spa Swap

Westminster-based Lexor Inc., one of the country’s largest manufacturers of spa chairs and other related furniture, is consolidating its local operations in its hometown.

The privately held company, which makes a variety of chairs for manicures and pedicures, recently signed a 187,696-square-foot lease at 7400 Hazard Ave., a 258,500-square-foot building on 12 acres a few blocks east of the San Diego (405) Freeway. The deal is among the largest industrial leases in Orange County so far this year by square feet.

The lease represents a space expansion for Lexor, which the Business Journal reported did about $13 million in annual sales a few years ago. The company said it has more than 35% of the nail industry furnishings market share. Its spa chairs are typically in the $2,000 to $5,000 range.

“The tenant occupied several buildings in the area, the new lease is a strategic consolidation to increase efficiencies while reducing cost,” said Randy Ellison, senior director of the Irvine office of Cushman & Wakefield who worked on the deal with colleagues Rick Ellison and Kyle McGillen.

The building was previously fully occupied by medical device maker B. Braun Medical Inc., which has other large OC facilities. The remaining 70,000 square feet was still available in late March, the only available empty industrial space in the city, according to Cushman.

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Mark Mueller
Mark Mueller
Mark is the Editor-in-Chief of the Orange County Business Journal, one of the premier regional business newspapers in the country. He’s the fifth person to hold the editor’s position in the paper’s long history. He oversees a staff of about 15 people. The OCBJ is considered a must-read for area business executives. The print edition of the paper is the primary source of local news for most of the Business Journal’s subscribers, which includes most of OC’s major corporate and community players. Mark’s been with the paper since 2005, and long served as the real estate reporter for the paper, breaking hundreds of commercial and residential real estate stories. He took on the editor’s position in 2018.
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