There’s long been talk around OC that Google plans to boost its local presence with a new office in the Impac Center on Jamboree to replace or augment current operations there. Filings with the City of Irvine show tentative plans for a new, five-story, 105,000-square-foot building on the campus. Now comes word that Kimera, an Asia-fusion restaurant owned by the Ghoukassian family of Bistango and Bayside fame, will close this week. Word has it that the landlord recently approached Kimera about letting the restaurant out of its lease early with an eye on using the spot as a staging ground for construction crews set to get started on the new building for Google …
Kimera plans to go out with some glitter—and timing any thespian would appreciate. Its annual Oscar Party on Feb. 24 will be its farewell performance …
Full circle: Craig Atkins was plenty familiar with the parcel of land his City Ventures bought next to the St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort. Atkins was a partner in O’Donnell/ Atkins, the largest land broker in California before it closed amid the recession. Back then he brokered the sale of the parcel next to the St. Regis and several others to the Makarechian family as they set about developing the resort. Makar Properties saw it ups and downs on the hotel, but held on to the parcel City Venture recently bought (see related story, page 1)…
There’s always room for improvement, even if you’re The New Home Co. and your Lambert Ranch development has sold like hot cakes at prices averaging more than $1 million a home. Just ask Amir and Mojgan Moghadam, recently featured in a Wall Street Journal story about the extras offered by high-end homebuilders. The couple paid $1.4 million for one of the Aliso Viejo-based developer’s homes—and tacked on another $550,000 for upgrades ranging from a $2,600 Sub-Zero ice maker to $28,200 for a sunny conservatory. The trend extends to services: the report noted that New Home got $9 million in companywide revenue from its in-house design studio in 2012, up from $7.6 million the prior year. Most of last year’s design-related revenue came at Lambert Ranch…
Maybe not: Any connection between the Business Journal’s recent profile of Ingram Micro’s William Humes as one of the honorees at our recent CFO of the Year Awards and a rare one-day spike in the company’s shares, which rose more than 7% on Jan. 13. A report of record revenue of $11.4 billion and profits of $101.4 million for Ingram Micro, which operates on razor-thin margins, might have had more to do with the jump …
Publisher Richard Reisman reports that he gave this response to Rick Perry when the Texas governor called last week: “I wish you no luck, but thank you for coming to California” for a round wooing local companies by talking up the lower taxes and lighter regulations in the Lone Star state. Reisman’s lack of goodwill is understandable for a hometown exec with every reason to want a vibrant base of local businesses. The thank-you is in line with a sentiment in business circles that it might take such well-publicized, frontal PR assaults to awaken Sacramento pols to the idea that higher taxes and uncertainties on regulation create openings for Perry and others. Media coverage of Perry’s tour, and the responses from Sacramento, indicate that the pols are still slumbering.
