Hedge-fund manager and newly minted novelist Chuck Martin could count a couple of wins during the recent debut of his thriller Provocateur at Barnes & Noble at Fashion Island. The obvious win came when a crowd filled a floor of the store for a debut party, snapping up all 72 copies of the book, which has a cover price of $23.95. The stop at Barnes & Noble also marked a win for Martin’s Mont Pelerin Capital, which came out ahead after it shorted both Barnes & Noble and Borders before the latter went bankrupt last year. One more win for Martin: Provocateur has a 4.88 rating on the five-star system at goodreads.com …
Chapman University President Jim Doti offered high praise for Marvin W. Meyer, a scholar of Gnosticism who held the Griset Chair in Bible and Christian Studies at the school in Orange. Meyer, who recently died of complications from melanoma, “was a scholar and showman who helped put this university on the map,” Doti told the L.A. Times … Speaking of showmen: A “special appearance” by none other than Placido Domingo gets top billing on invitations for the groundbreaking of Chapman’s Center for the Arts, scheduled for Sept. 6 …
Bob Olson looks to be about the busiest hotel builder in California—and he’s likely to keep that title for awhile. His R.D. Olson Development is under contract to buy land in the Spectrum near the HQ of Taco Bell Corp., with an eye on building a 203-room Courtyard by Marriott. The company just broke ground on a pair of hotels totaling 294 rooms in Tustin. It finished a 106-room Courtyard by Marriott in Goleta opening last week, its fourth opening in the past 10 months. An overview of Olson’s plans in Tustin, along with other area developments now breaking ground, is in this week’s Special Report (page 21) …
Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, the renowned New York-based architecture firm, also has plenty to do these days, thanks in part to a growing relationship with Irvine Company, now one of California’ busiest office developers. Pei Cobb was hired on the developer’s 20-story Newport Center project, which is well underway and will be Pimco’s new HQ, and it was just tapped for a new 19-story building planned two blocks away (page 1). Then there’s a 32-acre office site in Santa Clara, which Irvine Company just bought, with plans to redevelop it into a higher-end campus. Pei Cobb will be helping out with plans there as well …
Steve Wilburn, who heads Newport Beach-based FirmGreen Inc., was one of 17 CEOs who took part in a business roundtable at the White House last week. The meeting, which included Export-Import Bank of the United States Chairman Fred P. Hochberg, focused on ways government can help create jobs. FirmGreen hasn’t received subsidies or government funding, but its participation in building a power plant in Rio de Janeiro to convert meth-ane gas from the world’s largest landfill into renewable energy was instrumental in helping Brazil-based Gás Verde SA secure a $48.6 million loan from the Ex-Im Bank. The project generated 165 new jobs at FirmGreen and U.S. subcontractors, according to federal officials.
