Yes, these are hard times for homebuilders,”I don’t think anyone has seen the bottom yet,” admits Lennar West Coast chief Emile Haddad. But Haddad flatly denies “rumors” that Lennar is in financial trouble or that it’s pulling back in OC. He says Lennar may delay the construction of homes in Anaheim’s A-Town and is approaching other rollouts cautiously. But only because it doesn’t want to sell “A-grade product” into a market with price and mortgage issues. Lennar has pared payroll, retrained salespeople and put assets under constant review; the company has forfeited “several hundred million dollars” in land options rather than throw good money after bad. Result: Haddad says Lennar will be ready when the rebound comes (Heritage Fields at the Great Park is a 10-year project.) He says the balance sheet is solid,Lennar’s buying spree in recent years was financed largely with equity partners,and the company remains committed to its high-density vision for OC. Haddad cheerleads the staff: “I tell everybody, this is the industry we signed up for.” Haddad even hears it from wife Dina: “She says, ‘Look at the (Lennar) stock.’ I tell her, you never look at the stock short term” …
Haddad, who a year ago evacuated the vacationing Dina and their two kids from his besieged native Lebanon, says he would love to persuade six of her relatives to leave the war-battered country and move into the spacious house he is building in Nellie Gail: “The guy in ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding?’ That’s me” …
Having sold 70% of Irvine-based Yard House to private equity firm TSG Consumer Partners for “more than $100 million,” Steele Platt has indulged himself: He’s paid just under $10 million for a home in Crystal Cove. Platt continues as CEO and with TSG’s backing plans to grow Yard House into a national chain with 100 locations, a la Cheesecake Factory. Yard House No. 17 just opened at Fashion Island; openings in Riverside, Las Vegas, Chino Hills and downtown L.A. are scheduled in the next year …
Search committee member Professor Elizabeth Loftus is scheduled to be on “Inside OC” this week to discuss UCI Chancellor Michael Drake’s controversial hiring-firing-rehiring of noted liberal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky as dean of the new law school …
More than 200,000 Google hits for “Chemerinsky and Irvine” as of late last week, eight times the number for “Agran and Irvine” …
Chapman U Prez Jim Doti says if Drake had not rehired Chemerinsky, he would have recruited him to be a prof at Chapman. What makes Doti think he could have lured Chemerinsky away from Duke? “Money talks.” Media savvy Chapman has capitalized on the UCI imbroglio, positioning its own law school as the “conservative” alternative. Doti and Chapman law dean John Eastman are declaring a “freeway series” for profs and students.
