REAL ESTATE
Cadence Park, the 1,007-home next phase of development planned at Irvine’s Great Park Neighborhoods, could see sales begin by March, according to Emile Haddad, chief executive of Five Point Holdings LLC. The Aliso Viejo-based master developer said it sold the land to eight homebuilders for $475 million. Construction work for model homes at Cadence Park should start in a few months. Land sales at Great Park Neighborhoods have brought in about $1.7 billion since 2013, not factoring in the latest transaction. On the commercial front, Five Point said it’s preparing to move ahead with “Base Camp,” a roughly 500,000-square-foot mixed-use project at Great Park Neighborhoods with offices, food-focused retail, hotels and other uses.
—Mark Mueller
The county is looking to fast-track development of a 100-acre land site it owns in Irvine next to Great Park Neighborhoods, although the city looks likely to oppose the project. A development plan and environmental report are expected to be presented to the county’s board of supervisors this week for the site, where the county envisions building a mix of apartments, offices and other commercial projects. The project would be headed by Lowe Enterprises. Irvine council members have stated opposition to the project, due to its effects on traffic and interference with the operations of the Orange County Great Park, and have threatened litigation.
—Mark Mueller
MEDIA
Brian Calle, opinion editor for The Orange County Register and its parent company, Southern Cali-
fornia News Group, has left his post to become operating partner of a new group overseeing the operations of LA Weekly. LA Weekly parent Voice Media Group said last month it had reached an agreement to sell the alternative paper to Semanal Media, a downtown-based entity established for the purposes of the transaction. The deal, terms of which weren’t disclosed, is expected to close by the end of the month. State records list Calle as chief executive of Semanal. Attorney David Welch of downtown Los Angeles’ D|R Welch Attorneys at Law is among the partners in the venture. Other partners haven’t been disclosed.
—Mark Mueller and
Diane Haithman
EDUCATION
Chapman University will buy Katella Grand, a 399-unit apartment complex near Anaheim’s Platinum Triangle, for $148 million, to beef up its collection of student housing near the Orange-based school. It’s buying the 2-year-old complex from UDR, a Colorado-based real estate investment trust. The university is selling $150 million in bonds to fund the buy. Katella Grand is about three miles from Chapman. Rents there run as high as $3,400 a month for 3-bedroom units, according to brokerage data. Chapman has been an active buyer of off-campus housing projects in recent years to provide rooms to students at the school, which has about 8,000 students. School officials said Katella Grand would eventually provide space for about 900 students.
—Paul Hughes
TECHNOLOGY
Employees for the largest chipmakers in both OC and San Diego County are on edge, following Broadcom Ltd.’s unsolicited $103 billion bid for Qualcomm Inc. The deal is potentially the largest technology acquisition ever. It would make Broadcom the third-largest chipmaker in the world. Broadcom employs about 1,600 people in Irvine, and the city has already seen its share of job cuts over the past year following its sale to Singapore’s Avago Technologies, which kept the Broadcom name but has a larger presence in Silicon Valley. Qualcomm is the largest private-sector employer in San Diego, nearly 13,000 people, and also has offices in Irvine.
—Mark Mueller
