Newport Beach-based City Ventures Inc. is the latest area homebuilder going back to school to find good land development deals.
The privately held builder last week won an auction to buy a 10.7-acre property in the Ventura County community of Newbury Park that currently houses a high school and maintenance facility for that region’s school district.
$10.1 Million
The company agreed to pay the Conejo Valley Unified School District $10.1 million for the land, which sits alongside the Ventura (101) Freeway and is about 5 miles from the center of the city of Thousand Oaks.
The winning bid was about $2 million more than what another developer initially offered to pay for the site at the start of the May 28 auction, according to local reports.
The price also is $6 million more than what the land was expected to trade for in 2011, when another developer’s deal for the property fell through.
The district plans to relocate the high school following the sale. City Ventures is said to be planning a mixture of homes and commercial development on the site.
Specifics of City Venture’s project, and a time frame for the development moving ahead, haven’t been disclosed.
The project is currently zoned for retail use and will require the builder to get approvals from the city of Thousand Oaks to have homes built at the site, according to a report in the Ventura County Star.
City Ventures is no stranger to entitlement risk. The company, which got its start in 2009, is able to compete with cash-flush public builders on land deals by going after projects with more entitlement risk than its competitors would normally consider, Chairman Craig Atkins told the Business Journal in February.
The company also prospers, Atkins said, by taking on all types of for-sale housing projects, including its share of infill development projects in North Orange County and other California markets.
The builder, which has amassed land holdings across California that could support close to 10,000 homes, could be joining the ranks of publicly traded builders later this year.
City Ventures said last month it had confidentially submitted a draft registration statement to the Securities and Exchange Commission for a possible initial public offering.
The proposed offering is expected to move ahead after the SEC completes its review process, according to a company statement.
Terms of the potential IPO have not been disclosed.
School Sites
City Ventures is one of several Orange County builders that have tapped former school sites for residential projects.
Newport Beach-based William Lyon Homes currently is selling million-dollar homes at a pair of former school sites in Irvine.
Willow Bend, a 58-home site in Irvine’s University Park that previously held the Vista Verde elementary school site, opened earlier this year, as did The Branches, a 48-home project at the former Alderwood Elementary School in Woodbridge.
William Lyon inked a deal in 2009 with the Irvine school district to buy the land parcels, which total about 14.5 acres, for nearly $29 million.
Two former school sites in Huntington Beach are expected to hold nearly 130 homes from Irvine-based TRI Pointe Homes Inc.
TRI Pointe closed on the first of the two sites, a property along Pioneer Drive that previously held Wardlow School, in March.
CoStar Group Inc. records show the builder paying the Fountain Valley School District $14.8 million for the 8.5-acre site.
The builder said that homes at the former Wardlow site will range in size from 2,800 to 3,300 square feet and be priced in the high $900,000s when it opens in the next year.
TRI Pointe also plans to build an additional 81 homes at a second Huntington Beach site that held the Lamb School, along Yorktown Avenue. The sale of that 11.7-acre site has yet to close.
City Ventures also has construction moving ahead on a different type of school site for one of its higher-end housing projects that’s close to opening.
The builder has a high-end condo project at a 10-acre site in Pasadena that formerly served as the campus of Ambassador College. The project—called Ambassador Gardens—should see its first models open this fall.
City Ventures bought the land in 2010 and said at the time that the project could have a value of nearly $140 million upon completion. Pricing for the project hasn’t been announced.
The site is located next to Pasadena’s “Millionaire’s Row,” where dozens of older mansions are.
