RESIDENTIAL
Santa Ana developer Michael Harrah seems to have a fetish for really tall buildings. Nothing smaller than 30 stories will do.
This time, Harrah’s eyeing the Hawaiian skyline. He plans a 35-story luxury condominium tower in downtown Honolulu, dubbed The Pinnacle Honolulu.
Harrah plans a slender high-rise, averaging about two condos per floor for a total of 50. The homes should sell for $650,000 to $1.2 million, about what developers are asking at similar, though shorter, towers going up or planned in Irvine.
In Hawaii, Harrah is working under The Pinnacle LLC, an arm of Santa Ana’s Caribou Industries Inc. His company should break ground in March on the 350-foot tower.
The Pinnacle is one of several high-rises being developed in Honolulu, including one next to Harrah’s building.
In June, Harrah paid $4 million for the 13,637-square-foot site.
“What really intrigued me about this is the gateway,” Harrah told the Pacific Business News. “You’ll have 24 hours of magic from the city lights looking toward the ocean, and you’ll get the sunrise and the sunset.”
Apparently, Honolulu residents don’t share the same reservations about high-rises as do people in Santa Ana.
Harrah’s proposed 37-story office tower here, which would be dubbed One Broadway Plaza, should go before Santa Ana voters in April
after opponents collected enough signatures last year to force a vote on the project.
Late last year, a judge refused Harrah’s bid to invalidate referendum petitions on grounds they were improperly prepared.
As for Hawaii, Harrah has been dabbling there for a year or so. He bought a home on Kauai and then invested $5.5 million in buying and renovating a hotel on the island.
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Reddam’s Wilko: headed to Kentucky Derby in May |
Winning Investment
J. Paul Reddam’s got a surprise winner on his hands.
The man who rode the mortgage industry in the 1990s by founding and selling Costa Mesa-based Ditech.com to General Motors Acceptance Corp. now rides the equally tumultuous world of horse racing.
In October, Reddam’s colt Wilko stunned horse racing fans with a surprise win of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile in Texas. Wilko earned $780,000 in prize money. Not bad, considering Reddam had bought a 75% stake in the horse a month before the race.
Reddam was surprised too. He said he thought Wilko had the least chance of four horses he had entered in the contest. The reason: Wilko’s background is rooted in racing on the grass courses of England.
Before the race, Reddam said his agent in Europe sent videos of the horse. He said he gambled Wilko’s racing style would suit the dirt tracks here.
“First time I ever saw him run was at the Breeders Cup,” Reddam said.
The Breeders win automatically qualifies Wilko for the May 7 Kentucky Derby, Reddam said.
But Wilko has hit a glitch. Last month he placed a disappointing third in the Hollywood Futurity, a top-tier race at Hollywood Park.
Reddam said the horse ran with a minor injury, a crack in the wall of one hoof. The injury equates to a torn fingernail for humans, but can be painful when pressure is applied, Reddam said.
“We normally wouldn’t even have ran him,” Reddam said. “We felt the 2-year-old championship was on the line. We couldn’t back out of it.”
Futurity winner Declan’s Moon now appears the favorite for the Eclipse Award as the sport’s top 2-year-old.
Still, Reddam said he remains optimistic about the Kentucky Derby.
“The horse is just like his owner: He takes hard knocks and will keep coming,” he said.
After rising and falling with the mortgage industry, Reddam is back with Irvine’s CashCall Inc. The venture makes loans of $5,000 to $10,000, not backed by a home or a car. Reddam tapped former child star Gary Coleman as the company’s pitchman.
Reddam said the loans are riskier, but the returns are higher.
COMMERCIAL
It’s time to bring more shops, dining and hotels to Victorville.
At least that’s the thinking of Santa Ana-based World Premiere Investments.
The developer sees the city as well as the Victor Valley as primed for retail expansion, according to Bernie Labowitz, World’s vice president of leasing.
“The timing is excellent for retail development, because of the amount of housing and industry coming in,” Labowitz told the Daily Press.
The company is in talks with potential tenants, according to Labowitz. The company’s retail development should be done late this year or early 2006, he said.
Labowitz spoke in broad terms about the project, saying it could include a couple of hotels, a restaurant and “acres of retail.” World Premier is developing on about 45 acres.
