Planning experts agree that a push toward higher-density development, more investment in roads, expansion of public transportation and strong-willed political leaders are needed for Southern California to handle the expected surge in population growth during the next 20 years.
The experts also agree that none of those things are close to becoming a reality.
Southern California is in the midst of adding about 570,000 residents this decade. Orange County alone should add about 400,000 people in the next 15 years.
Yet about 75% of new homes being built in the area still are detached homes, said Raphael Bostic, of the University of Southern California’s School of Policy, Planning & Development. Only 5% of new homes can truly be considered high-density, such as condominium towers.
Commercial development mirrors that trend. A mere 8% of commercial development is for office towers or other high-density buildings. Most is warehouse, or sprawling big-box types of buildings.
“That’s not a lot of jobs per acre,” Bostic said.
The low-density development is taking up all the available land, and planners are scratching their heads trying to figure out where Southern California is going to put everyone, and their offices, if this trend continues.
The planners spoke in late March at an event sponsored by the Center for Real Estate at University of California, Irvine’s Paul Merage School of Business.
For the time being, the answer is to build in the Inland Empire.
The two-county region has created 46% of Southern California’s jobs during the past 15 years, and about half the region’s new homes, said John Husing, President of the Redlands-based Economics & Politics Inc.
This has created a divided state, with growth in the east, and no growth in the west, said Larry Kosmont, president of Kosmont Cos., an Encino-based real estate consulting company.
More integration is needed between the two sides, but local officials aren’t interested in much more than quick-fix measures based around sales tax revenues, he said.
As far as urban planning is concerned, the biggest problem is that no elected officials “are willing to expend political capital,” Bostic said.
Top level state leaders don’t show up at local planning meetings to force through approvals of important matters, and local politicians are too easily swayed by NIMBYs at weekly city council meetings, he said.
The failure to get the governor’s $222 billion infrastructure bond measure on the ballot is just the latest example of long-term planning neglect in government, panelists said.
Opus Promotion
Paul Marshall, one of the Business Journal’s People to Watch in 2005, has been promoted.
Marshall, who heads the Irvine office of Phoenix-based Opus West Corp., was named the company’s division president for Southern California. He previously was a vice president.
Marshall has been overseeing Opus West’s trio of high-rise condo projects going up along Jamboree Road in Irvine. The company also is building the 404-unit Avenue One, a mid-rise project that sits alongside the high-rises.
Opus West plans to sell the mid-rise units in three phases. The first phase recently was completed.
It sold the 154-unit first phase of Avenue One to K. Hovnanian of Red Bank, N.J. The price was $160 million, or about $1 million a unit. It is one of OC’s largest condominium transactions in recent years.
Chicago-based Moran & Co. represented Opus West in the deal.
Opus West is set to sell the remaining Avenue One condos when construction is completed.
Completion of the 187 homes in the second phase is due for June. The last 63 units are expected to be finished in early 2007.
Master Development Corp. of Newport Beach has sold the Stadium Collection office project, an 11-building, 68,803-square-foot office park in Anaheim.
The total price for the project, which is near the Platinum Triangle at 2019-2211 W. Orangewood Ave., was $18 million.
The office park was built as a campus project in 1979. It was bought by MDC for redevelopment in 2004 for $11.7 million, according to a Colliers Seeley International Inc. report at the time.
The company sold individual buildings to buyers who want to use the space.
The 11 free-standing buildings, on W. Orangewood Avenue, range in size from 4,500 square feet to 7,300 square feet.
Louis Tomaselli, Mitch Zehner and Joe Miller of Voit Commercial Brokerage LP’s Anaheim office represented MDC in the sale of all buildings. Voit also represented the buyers on about half of the sales.
