The first big local project in several years for George Argyros,head of Costa Mesa-based real estate investor and developer Arnel & Affiliates,is starting to see outward progress.
Arnel and partner Irvine-based Hopkins Real Estate Group began initial redevelopment work about a month ago on a 215,000-square-foot shopping center in La Habra, to be known as Imperial Plaza.
The $45 million project, replacing a Kmart that was vacated in 2002, first was announced back in 2005. It was the first project disclosed by Argyros after his return from Spain, where he had served as ambassador from 2001 to late 2004.
Now that construction has begun, the plan is to complete Imperial Plaza by October, said Brian Hopkins, vice president and director of development for Hopkins Real Estate. It is his company’s third development in La Habra, and the fourth project Hopkins has worked on with Arnel.
The two largest tenants are lined up: a 135,000-square-foot Target and a 35,000-square-foot Circuit City, Hopkins said.
The old Kmart site was 178,578 square feet. The redevelopment expands the contiguous space by 12,000 square feet and adds another 25,000 square feet of pads.
Hopkins and Arnel have lined up a construction loan for the project, which is on Imperial Highway.
Wrightwood Capital of Chicago is providing $35.8 million in financing for the project. Mark Strauss of Cohen Financial’s Newport Beach-based office helped arrange the loan.
It’s the fifth transaction Wrightwood and Hopkins have worked on together.
Among other local projects, Hopkins said his development company still is on track to complete a Ralphs-anchored shopping center in San Clemente’s Talega development by late summer or early fall.
New Local Cushman Manager
There’s been some local personnel changes after the November acquisition of Dallas-based Trammell Crow Co. by Los Angeles’ CB Richard Ellis Group Inc.
Cushman & Wakefield’s Irvine office just picked up a former Trammell Crow executive. The brokerage hired Eric Hinkelman to be its new senior managing director and branch manager of the company’s Orange County office.
Hinkelman had been a managing director with the Irvine office of Trammell Crow, where he managed brokerage activities in Southern California and major institutional account relationships.
He has more than 22 years of commercial real estate experience and is a University of California, Los Angeles, grad.
At Cushman, Hinkelman will be responsible for managing the operations and strategic development of the brokerage’s OC branch.
He takes over the local job from Joe Vargas, who recently was promoted to executive managing director and area manager for all of Cushman’s Southern California operations.
Cushman’s Southern California offices last year did more than $4 billion worth of deals totaling 35 million square feet and managed more than 18 million square feet of space.
Geoffrey Edmunds’ first three condominium towers in OC have proven to be strong sellers, but the developer said he hasn’t decided whether he’ll be tackling any more in the near future.
“Nothing else is planned right now,” said Edmunds, president of Geoffrey H. Edmunds California Inc., a unit of Scottsdale-based Geoffrey H. Edmunds & Associates Inc. “It all depends on the right opportunity (coming up).”
Edmunds was on hand late last month for the grand opening of The Plaza-Irvine, the first of three high-rise condo towers he’s building with Phoenix-based Opus West Corp. at Jamboree Road and Campus Drive in Irvine.
The two development companies had worked together before in their home state. But it was Opus West that convinced Edmunds to take on the trio of projects in Irvine, his company’s first development here. Edmunds has been commuting from Arizona to Irvine about one day a week since the project started, he said.
So far the partnership has been strong. Most of the 101 homes in the first Plaza-Irvine tower are sold out, as are most of the homes at the project’s second 15-story tower, which should be opening in a few months.
The average price for homes at those two towers is $1.1 million.
The third tower, 3000 The Plaza, is scheduled for a mid-2008 opening and is about 40% sold.
During a quick tour of The Plaza-Irvine last month, I ran into a few soon-to-be residents who were getting a feel for the towers. The first batch of owners should move in this month.
Expect to see lights on at the new tower.
“There will always be (speculative) investors,” Edmunds said, but actual residents should make up a majority of the development.
Features,from plush kitchens and bathrooms to a sizeable on-site gym,make the homes livable, he said.
