COMMERCIAL
Irvine-based Hopkins Real Estate Group and the Newport Beach-based commercial property group of LNR Property Corp., two Orange County developers, say they’re still on schedule to open a mega-project in Carson in a few years.
They hope the tough economic climate will have started to rebound by then.
“Time is on our side,” said Stephen Hopkins, Hopkins’ chief executive.
Hopkins and LNR are working with city and environmental officials on the Boulevards at South Bay, an $850 million retail and housing project near Carson’s well-known blimp fields.
The developers originally expected a late 2011 opening, but now say 2012 is when the Boulevards will debut. The housing portion of the project is scheduled to come on line shortly after the retail is completed.
No big leases have been announced yet, but the participants aren’t panicking.
“We still have retailers talking to us,” said Bryan Miranda, LNR Property vice president.
The developers and city officials spoke earlier this month at an event sponsored by the OC chapter of the Commercial Real Estate Women group.
Many large retailers are telling developers that they’re not interested in opening new stores until 2011 at the earliest, which should coincide well with the project’s opening, Hopkins said.
Rental rates,which the developer says it isn’t planning to drop,should stabilize by then as well, the developers said. CB Richard Ellis Group Inc. is handling leasing for the project.
The project’s location is a big draw to retailers, who will try almost anything to get good spaces in busy infill locations like the Carson site, said Hopkins.
The Boulevards is being built on a former landfill that closed in 1965. It’s the largest shopping center development under way in Los Angeles County, officials said. The site was once considered by the NFL for an expansion team’s potential stadium.
More than 300,000 cars pass by the land on the 405 freeway every day, according to Jerry Groomes, Carson’s city manager. The city’s contributing about $100 million to the project.
“We want to pull people off the freeway,” Groomes said.
The 168-acre project will include about 1.25 million square feet of shops and restaurants, 200 hotel rooms, 1,150 homes and 400 apartments.
The Boulevard’s official groundbreaking took place late last year. Environmental cleanup work, which will include a complicated process for handling methane gas fumes, is now taking place. Above-ground construction is expected to begin next year.
The project will result in some 4,500 construction jobs and 2,500 permanent jobs once it opens, according to the developers’ data.
Hopkins could have another nearby project in the works. The company’s in talks with Carson-based developer Watson Land Co. about working together on a nearby 80-acre project, according to Hopkins.
Bacchus Sales
Irvine’s Bacchus Development is seeing a pickup in sales activity for its small office, for-sale projects in the Irvine Spectrum. The company said it has sold seven buildings in the past month at its Bacchus Signature Series project on Irvine Center Drive and Lake Forest Drive.
The 265,800-square-foot project counts 40 two-story office buildings, which range in size from 4,950 to 9,900 square feet. The project was completed in 2007. Since then, 32 of the buildings have been sold.
The latest seven sales totaled about 45,552 square feet, and they sold at about $225 per square foot. That price is down more than a third from what earlier sales at the project had sold for.
Bacchus added a new listing brokerage team to help the last round of sales. Michael Hartel, Kevin Turner, Joe Winkelmann and Travis Haining of Voit Real Estate Services’ Irvine office now are marketing the project.
RESIDENTIAL
Irvine-based Real Estate Disposition Corp., the country’s biggest auctioneer of foreclosed homes, said it’s starting a new business line for lenders holding big portfolios of homes that have gone back to the bank. The company’s REDC Default Solutions will focus on loss mitigation, bank-owned asset management and asset valuation, officials said.
The new division’s president is Jason Allnutt, who most recently held the post of vice president of credit loss management at Fannie Mae. Matt Slonaker, most recently an exec at EMC Mortgage, is coming on board as a senior vice president.
