Arts
The Orange County Museum of Art hired Sarah Jesse as deputy director. Her primary responsibilities will include management of OCMA’s new temporary space at South Coast Plaza Village. The shopping center location is a short walk from Segerstrom Center, where the museum plans to build its new permanent home. OCMA is moving from its long-time home in Newport Beach to Costa Mesa; the museum sold its former spot earlier this year for a reported $24 million. The Newport Center site is expected to be turned into a high-end senior living facility. Jesse comes to OCMA from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art where she has worked since 2011, most recently as Associate Vice President of Education. “Her success at collaborating with artists, creating innovative programs to engage audiences, and building community involvement will be a tremendous asset to OCMA as we head into this transformational moment in the life of the institution,” said Todd Smith, OCMA’s director and chief executive.
Hospitality
Montage Hotels & Resorts will manage Montage Big Sky in Montana when it opens in 2021. The resort getaway project, near the state’s largest ski resort, just broke ground; it’s a partnership of Montage parent Montage International in Irvine and CrossHarbor Capital Partners in Boston. Bloomberg estimated the development’s value at $400 million. It’s set to include 150 rooms, 39 Montage-branded residences, access to a local golf club and an on-site spa, among other features.
Manufacturing
Foothill Ranch-based Kaiser Aluminum Corp. has bought a Columbia, N.J.-based manufacturing firm on undisclosed terms. Imperial Machine & Tool Co., which has been in business for 75 years, describes itself as a “leader in multi-material additive manufacturing and machining technologies for aerospace and defense, automotive, high-tech, and general industrial applications.” Imperial has “a strong management and technical team that will complement our metallurgical and application engineering expertise,” Kaiser Chairman and Chief Executive Jack Hockema said in a statement. Kaiser has a market value of $1.85 billion; shares of the aluminum producer were up slightly following the news of the acquisition.
Real Estate
Two Orange County-based homebuilding firms opened up notable new projects just outside county lines, each with an eye on affordability. In downtown Long Beach, Irvine-based City Ventures unveiled a project called Huxton, one of the first new for-sale housing communities to be built in the city’s downtown core in nearly a decade. The 40-unit project is among the region’s first solar, all electric townhomes projects ever built, and features prices starting under $700,000. In Corona, New Home Co. based in Aliso Viejo is acting as the master developer and one of the builders at Bedford, a 1,600-home master-planned community. It’s the first residential community of that scale to be built in Corona in more than 15 years. Irvine-based TRI Pointe Homes is among the builders selling homes there in the first phase.
