Bosa Development Corp. nearly has sold out its two condominium towers under construction in Irvine.
Now the Vancouver, British Columbia-based developer is gearing up to start construction on another tower next year.
Bosa has sales contracts signed and 15% deposits on all but three condos, according to the company. Bosa is building 232 condos in twin 18-story towers at Jamboree Road and Michelson Drive.
“I expected (sales) to be very good when we purchased the land,” said Natale “Nat” Bosa, who heads the company.
Bosa is building the condo towers at Park Place, a sprawling 105-acre campus of offices, shops and a movie theater near the San Diego (I-405) Freeway. Bosa plans four more towers at the site, though the company expects to build just one or two at a time.
Last month Bosa closed its sales office at Park Place.
The company is working with the city on approvals for its planned towers, according to Michael Haack, Irvine’s manager of development services.
The city’s Planning Commission and City Council are expected to consider Bosa’s tower plans early next year, with the developer starting construction as early as summer, Haack said.
“We are supportive of creating a new neighborhood in the city of Irvine that creates a live-work situation whereby you can reside, perhaps work and even shop,” he said.
City officials need to analyze the impact on traffic of Bosa’s proposed towers, Haack said.
As for who is buying at Bosa’s Marquee at Park Place,including the penthouses priced at $1.5 million to $1.8 million,Bosa officials declined to drop any names.
A player with the San Francisco 49ers looked at a condo but never signed a contract, according to Dennis Serraglio, director of sales and marketing with Bosa.
No celebrities bought, he said.
The units are from 1,350 square feet to more than 2,000 square feet. Prices start at about $600,000.
Most buyers are in their mid-50s, retired or working part-time, and live in Orange County, Serraglio said.
He said some buyers are professionals, typically single, in their mid 30s or early 40s.
Some 10% of the buyers plan to keep their current home, he said.
High-rise living appeals to older buyers for convenience,no lawn care, for one,and for its proximity to shops and restaurants, he said.
Bosa is the first developer to build a modern high-rise luxury tower in OC. But competition isn’t far behind.
Several other developers in Irvine and Santa Ana now are working on plans for condo high-rises. Along Jamboree, developers plan eight more high-rise buildings, including Bosa’s next step.
The condo tower most likely to reach the market next is The Plaza Irvine, which includes three high-rises under development by Phoenix-based Opus West Corp. and Scottsdale-based Geoffrey H. Edmunds & Associates Inc. The Plaza is set for a parcel at Jamboree and Campus Drive.
Opus plans to start building the $200 million first two towers in January. The third tower could cost $100 million, according to Opus. The developer is working with the city on approvals for the third tower, which is set to replace a previously planned office building.
Another potential high-rise site is at Jamboree and Michelson, across from Park Place on the former Parker Hannifin Corp. industrial campus.
There Lennar Corp., based in Miami, and Highgate Holdings, an Irving, Texas-based real estate investor, plan some 1,300 condos, including one tower.
Bosa executives shrug off the potential future competition.
“We are just going to keep on building there,” Nat Bosa said. “The more people that live there, the more that are going to come.”
Bosa added, “There’s 3 million people in the area. Every year the population ages more. That’s who we are catering to.”
But aside from increased competition, high-rise developers also face the prospect of a cooling housing market.
While prices appear to be holding up, sales have slowed, according to La Jolla-based market tracker DataQuick Information Systems. In September, sales in the county dropped 28% to 3,585 homes and condos, versus a year earlier.
Bosa’s Serraglio said that in a strong market, the company’s customers typically put their current home up for sale three months before they expect to move.
If the market cools, they may do it sooner, such as six months before, he said.
