A quartet of publicly traded homebuilders and one local builder looking to go public appear set to head up the first batch of residential development at Irvine Company’s long-awaited Orchard Hills community.
Documents filed with Irvine’s planning commission show that the Newport Beach-based master developer is expecting at least five builders to work on homes at Orchard Hills, a development in North Irvine that’s slated to open next spring.
City documents show TRI Pointe Homes Inc. in Irvine, Los Angeles-based KB Home, Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Taylor Morrison Homes Corp., and Brookfield Residential Properties Inc. of Alberta, Canada, are listed as builders tapped for specific subdivisions in Orchard Hills, whose entrance is near the intersection of Portola Parkway and Culver Avenue.
The project has the potential to hold about 4,000 homes and figures to be one of Irvine Co.’s higher-end housing projects in the city.
All four builders are publically traded (see Special Report, page 37).
Public builders have held a clear advantage over their privately held peers this year in their ability to buy land, particularly in Southern California’s more expensive housing markets, thanks to better access to funding.
The fifth builder slated to build at Orchard Hills, according to city documents, is The New Home Co. in Aliso Viejo, which this year filed plans to raise as much a $172.5 million in an initial public offering.
That offering has yet to move ahead, and a time frame for its completion is unknown.
In June, the Business Journal reported that New Home Co. entered into letters of intent to buy a pair of sites in Irvine presumed to be in Orchard Hills that would total 108 lots and sell for a combined $118.2 million.
The average of nearly $1.1 million per home lot is among the priciest noncoastal land deals in OC in recent memory.
There’s no indication in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission of what any of the other four builders are expecting to pay for land at Orchard Hills, and none of the companies lists the development among local projects on their websites.
New Home Co.’s lots—based on the map filed with Irvine’s planning commission—appear to be the largest and likely priciest of the five builders.
Irvine Co. officials declined to comment on the prospective builders.
After several months of speculation, the company announced in September that it planned to unveil 12 communities in Orchard Hills for its spring 2014 opening.
The project, expected to hold a number of homes in the $2 million-and-above range, in addition to more affordable offerings, was mothballed for several years in the last housing downturn.
Several of the 12 communities have no specific builders associated with them on the development map filed with the city. It’s unknown whether individual builders for those projects have yet to finalize deals with Irvine Co. or if the company’s in-house building arm, Irvine Pacific LP, would head up construction.
Irvine Co. officials also declined to comment on whether Irvine Pacific would be involved at Orchard Hills.
Garden Grove Sale
City Villas, a 148-unit Garden Grove apartment complex a few blocks from the Christ Cathedral campus, has traded hands.
Benedict Canyon Equities Inc., a Sherman Oaks-based investor, paid $28 million for the property at 13061 Lampson Ave., across the street from Twin Lakes Freedom Park.
The sale price works out to $189,000 per unit for the complex.
Stewart Weston, a senior vice president for the Irvine office of Institutional Property Advisors, a multifamily brokerage division of Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services, advised the seller, Fowler Property Acquisitions of San Francisco.
Casino Hotel
Irvine-based R.D. Olson Construction has started work on a 100-room project at Bell Garden’s Bicycle Casino, just off the Long Beach (710) Freeway.
The seven-story, 117,907-square-foot Bicycle Casino Hotel is expected to cost $45 million and be complete in the first quarter of 2015.
In addition to 300 construction-related jobs, the project is expected to result in 250 hotel and casino jobs at The Bicycle Casino, which is already the largest employer in Bell Gardens.
