The man who spurred the most remarkable real estate trend here in 2004,or in recent memory, for that matter,isn’t an icon of Orange County real estate. He’s an Italian immigrant to Canada.
Natale “Nat” Bosa is building the county’s first luxury condominium towers in Irvine. His bold plan to bring high-rise living to decidedly low-rise OC has put other developers in a race to be next.
“I got to hand it to him for having the guts to do it,” said Walter Hahn, a real estate economist with the Irvine office of Ernst & Young.
For years, Bosa has built high-rise condos in his hometown of Vancouver, British Co-lumbia. More recently, he’s built them in San Diego.
But real estate executives and industry experts were taken aback in the summer of 2003 when he unveiled plans to build twin 18-story towers in Irvine.
The obstacles were tremendous, critics said. Condo towers are costly and hard to build, they said. People in OC preferred their own homes and yards was the conventional wisdom. Skeptics doubted people would pay luxury prices to live in a high-rise in Irvine, of all places.
Bosa’s belief was that demographics in OC and all of Southern California had shifted.
Young families that once epitomized the growth of suburban OC had aged. Many now were older and affluent and might prefer to swap yard work for a condo with 24-hour services and security. Within walking distance would be shops and eateries.
So far, Bosa appears right.
In 2004, buyers signed contracts and paid deposits on nearly all of Bosa’s 232 condos under construction at Park Place, a sprawling commercial campus at the corner of Jamboree Road and Michelson Drive.
Buyers should start moving in a year from now, Bosa said.
The developer secured about $100 million in construction loans from Bank of America Corp. before he could start building. Since then, Bosa has adhered to his construction schedule, despite unexpected shortages and price hikes for steel and concrete.
Most of all, Bosa has triggered other developers to start work on their own condo towers and changed the way they think about housing here.
All of that earned Bosa, who heads Vancouver-based Bosa Development Corp., an honorable mention for the Business Journal’s businessperson of the year.
Back in 2003, Ernst & Young’s Hahn raised some doubts about demand for high-rise condos here. He said he still has those doubts, but it’s clear that Bosa’s first two towers are going to sell out.
“I looked over his building designs and I think they are really nice buildings,” Hahn said. “I see them going up, covered with glass. Everybody is going to have a view of something.”
Bosa himself said he isn’t surprised other developers have followed his lead. But he said he is astounded to see traditional homebuilders planning high-rises here.
In Irvine, Miami-based homebuilder Lennar Corp. and a partner plan high-rise condos at Parker Hannifin Corp.’s former campus across from Bosa’s towers.
“They really didn’t know how (to build high-rises) just a few years ago,” Bosa said.
In Bosa’s outspoken fashion, he said homebuilders have decided, “Lets get into the pool and swim with the sharks.”
Bosa said he and some of his staff even have held talks with The Irvine Company, which is responsible for much of Irvine’s suburban look and hasn’t joined the high-rise rush. Nothing has come of the talks, Bosa said, since he prefers outright ownership of his projects.
Richard Douglass, who heads the local arm of Dallas-based homebuilder Centex Corp., said he expects to see more condo towers here. Centex is working on a couple of high-rises in San Diego.
“We’ll eventually get into Orange County,” Douglass said.
The development team most likely to build OC’s next condo towers after Bosa is Phoenix-based Opus West Corp. and Scottsdale-based Geoffrey H. Edmunds & Associates Inc. Early last year they detailed plans for two 15-story towers at the corner of Campus Drive and Jamboree.
Then in August, the duo submitted plans to Irvine to nix a proposed office building at the site and put up a third tower instead. Opus plans to break ground this month on the first tower.
As for Bosa, he said he plans four more towers at Park Place and hopes to break ground on one later this year.
In all, there are 10 condo towers under construction or planned along Jamboree. In Santa Ana, a few developers are rumored to be planning high-rises. Bosa isn’t shy about taking credit.
“If I hadn’t started those, there still would be no high-rise spoken of,” he said about his two towers going up in Irvine. “I come from a different environment. If you always build homes, or four-story walkups, you need somebody to just give it a little awakening.”
He added, “The light was always there. I just turned the light on by starting.”
The story of Bosa’s life is one of rags to riches, Canadian style. In the 1950s, when Bosa was 13, his family left its farming life in Treviso, Italy, for Vancouver. Bosa is the eighth of 11 children.
In his youth, Bosa and his brothers worked in construction. In the early 1970s, the siblings built an apartment complex. Later that decade they built their first Vancouver high-rise.
Bosa started Bosa Development in 1986, around the time Vancouver’s government started a push to revitalize the city’s downtown. He bought a parcel from the government on the rundown east side, betting it would become fashionable to live there within a decade.
“A lot of people were not ready to move downtown 14 years ago,” Bosa said. “I was the first to test the waters.”
Bosa continues to take big chances. He said he personally signs for multimillion dollar loans from banks to build his towers, including those in Irvine. If any of his buildings go awry, he could be personally liable as well as his company.
“I’ve always done it,” Bosa said. “If (banks) see you are willing to stick your neck out, they ask, ‘Why is he going to stick his neck out? Maybe I should be willing to play with him.'”
While Bosa has surprised critics, some still are skeptical of high-rise living in OC.
High-rise housing makes sense in the long term, Ernst & Young’s Hahn said, given demand for housing here and limited land. But there are likely to be some bumps along the way, including another recession this decade, he said.
Hahn’s conclusion: Bosa’s first two towers will be profitable but some of the other eight planned for the area may not be. It will take some time for people to get used to not buying a home on a lot, he said.
Another five towers alone would add 1,000 condos to the market, which really would test demand, Hahn said.
“My guess is some of those are going to be financial failures,” he said.
Bosa remains bullish, despite looming competition. He said he’s tapped into sizeable demand that’s been there for years.
“Basically, it’s a commodity that was missing from the market,” Bosa said. “You are going to see a lot of high-rises in the next couple of years in Santa Ana, in Irvine.”
