Belated happy birthday to Lisa Argyros, who spent the night of her big day with parents Julia and George and other family members at Sage Hill School in Newport Coast, where supporters gathered for the public kickoff of a fundraising campaign on a new science center. Sage Hill Trustee Chair Vicki Booth, who’s also president of the Ueberroth Family Foundation, let the cat out of the bag on Lisa’s birthday. Head of School Gordon McNeill gave other news: Sage Hill has half of the $7.5 million price of the new science center in hand and will break ground in June …
Some prominent members of OC’s scientific community turned out for the event, including Dr. Peter Donovan, who runs the Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center at UCI, and Dr. Arthur Lander, director of the Center for Complex Biological Systems at the school …
Two other guests offered living proof about the links between science and other subjects, as well as the ability of Pimco’s Gross to make use of good ideas wherever he finds them. Dr. Edward Thorp, who was a math professor at MIT and UCI before becoming a hedge fund manager, was there. He’s also the author of Beat the Dealer, a book that Gross used effectively back in his college days. Dr. Mihir Worah, who has a Ph.D. in theoretical particle physics from the University of Chicago, heads the real return portfolio management team at Pimco. Worah co-authored a book with a title that sounds decidedly more academic than Thorp’s: “Intelligent Commodity Indexing.” He conceded that his academic training might not look like a prep course for his job overseeing a $100 billion inflation-hedging fund, but added that he’s “convinced it’s science training and the ability to couch economic outcomes in scientific terms that has led to my success” …
Diamond mine: Last week’s Lunar New Year, celebrated by many in the various Asian-American communities here, brought to mind Irvine’s Chinatown, otherwise known as the Diamond Jamboree retail center. That’s where you’ll find 85°C, the Taiwan-based purveyor of baked goods and sea-salt coffee, which has gotten a lot of ink for its recent addition of two stores in the San Gabriel Valley. The company started its U.S. operations in Irvine, and it’s no wonder it decided to expand. The shop at Diamond Jamboree has about $8.4 million in sales a year, according to the company. A guess based on a look around while standing in line puts it at about 5,000 square feet. And that puts its sales per square foot at about $1,600. South Coast Plaza does less than half that number, according to recent estimates …
More rough figuring: Market conditions indicate that Tony Moiso’s Rancho Mission Viejo got well over $100 million on land sales for the first 941 units of Sendero at the Ranch in South OC …
Lineup changes: Ken Gillett from Macerich to senior vice president of operations for Irvine Company Retail Properties; Peter Moersch from CBRE as vice president of neighborhood and community center leasing there … Doy Henley takes the gavel from Don Sodaro as chair of Chapman University’s board of trustees …
Dr. John Heydt from University Physicians & Surgeons at UCI Medical Center to work on UC Riverside’s new med school.
