Laura Archuleta has plenty of experience building both apartment complexes and a real estate company from the ground up.
The president of Jamboree Housing Corp. runs one of the largest nonprofit housing developers in California.
Close to 15,000 people live in the nearly 70 developments that have been built or are now owned by the Irvine-based company. Those projects total close to 7,000 rental units across California and are estimated to be worth more than $1 billion.
Jamboree Housing’s development pipeline was nearly $90 million as of earlier this year, and it includes several new rental projects in Orange County, including developments in Irvine, Buena Park and Brea. Nearly 60 people work at the company.
Long Way
That’s a far cry from where Jamboree Housing was when Archuleta joined the company about 14 years ago. The company had about 750 apartments to its name and a bare-bones operation back then.
There were three employees, no accountant and $300,000 in the bank when she joined the company.
“We kept our checkbook in my right-hand drawer,” Archuleta told the Business Journal a few years ago. “We were a very small company.”
Jamboree Housing now has about $376 million in assets and brought in about $20 million in rents annually as of 2011, the most recent data available.
The company is now believed to be California’s No. 2 affordable-housing developer after San Francisco-based Bridge Housing Corp., which has built about 14,000 rental units.
Archuleta was one of five local businesswomen honored at the Business Journal’s 19th annual Women in Business Awards luncheon June 4 at the Hyatt Regency Irvine (see related stories, pages 1, 4, 7, 10).
The commercial real estate industry in general, and the development business in particular, isn’t known for having too many female executives, but Jamboree Housing bucks that trend.
The company was founded in 1990 by Lila Lieberthal, who in 1999 hired Archuleta as an assistant director.
Archuleta—a California State University, Fullerton, undergraduate and master’s graduate who had public sector experience working for cities, including Garden Grove, Anaheim and Cypress—took over as president of the company in 2001.
Jamboree Housing’s executive team now includes Chief Financial Officer Marcy Torres and Chief Operating Officer Mary Jo Goelzer.
Officials said the company has grown over the years by hiring people who wanted flexible, part-time hours—often women who were raising children.
Experience
Archuleta’s own family experience helped draw her to the nonprofit housing sector.
Her mother lived in public housing growing up. That instilled in Archuleta a strong sense of community and compassion, according to people who know her.
“This is an industry I’m passionate about,” Archuleta said. “As a society, we’re only as strong as our weakest link.”
Jamboree builds and manages affordable housing for cities and developers, such as Irvine Company in Newport Beach; Aliso Viejo-based Shea Properties, part of J.F. Shea Co. in Walnut; and Miami-based Lennar Corp., which runs much of its day-to-day operations from Aliso Viejo.
Under state law, cities—and by extension, developers—have to provide affordable housing. They often turn to nonprofits such as Jamboree Housing to handle projects.
Educating communities about the company’s projects remains a challenge. The biggest resistance to affordable-housing development is the perception that it is welfare housing, Archuleta said.
“Historically, we have received a lot of opposition,” she said.
Jamboree Housing taps a combination of federal, state, city and county funds, and commercial loans for its projects.
Public support accounts for part of Jamboree’s revenue, but rents support the bulk of the costs of operating an individual complex upon its completion and paying for its long-term debt.
Demand
There’s plenty of demand for the company’s projects.
It’s not uncommon for interest lists at Jamboree Housing’s new projects―which offer homes at below-market rents to families whose average household income runs about $30,000―to run several thousand names deep.
That’s the case at the second phase of Doria, a 134-unit Irvine complex being built next to Irvine Co.’s Stonegate community. The remaining 74 units at the project, slated to come on line early next year, are designed for families who earn 30% to 60% of the area’s median income.
A two-bedroom unit at the Irvine complex, where monthly rent ranges upward of several thousand dollars, could end up costing closer to $600, depending on a renter’s income.
