Irvine Company is taking the wraps off its latest rental community, a Newport Center complex with some of the highest rents of any large apartment project in Orange County.
The Newport Beach developer is opening its 524-unit Villas Fashion Island this month at Santa Cruz Drive and San Joaquin Hills Road, a short walk from its Fashion Island shopping center.
Irvine Co. is billing the project on 16 acres that previously held the San Joaquin Plaza office complex as its most luxurious apartment community to date.
Units include large private balconies, elevated ceilings, walk-in closets and island kitchens featuring stainless-steel appliances and quartz countertops, according to the developer. Amenities range from concierge and spa services to personal shoppers and professional fitness instruction at its 4,300-square-foot fitness center, plus a dining club, five swimming pools and a cafe.
The project “is what the aspirational luxury market truly wants: the luxuries of time, space, privacy and service all within the atmosphere of a resort,” said Apartment Communities Division President Chaz Mueller—no relation to me—in a statement.
‘Aspirational luxury’ doesn’t come cheap. The least expensive one-bedroom units, which are just under 1,000 square feet, start at about $3,400 per month, according to Irvine Co.’s website. Some two-bedroom units of about 1,500 square feet top out around $6,000.
The complex appears to hold the most expensive set of apartments in Irvine Co.’s Orange County apartments portfolio, which tops 41,000 units and includes several other pricey complexes in Newport Beach.
CoStar Group Inc. data estimate the average monthly rent there is about $4,500, the highest of any apartment complex in Orange County larger than 100 units, Irvine Co.-owned or otherwise.
The next highest average is the two-tower Essex Skyline complex in Santa Ana, where monthly rents are about $4,200, according to CoStar figures.
Villas Fashion Island isn’t the most expensive rental project Irvine Co. owns, though; monthly rents at its 1221 Ocean Ave. complex in Santa Monica reportedly top out at more than $10,000.
Potential renters at Villas Fashion Island can get a deal of sorts if they move fast. The company’s website is advertising a month’s free rent for those who move in by the end of March.
Land Push
Irvine-based homebuilder CalAtlantic Group Inc. is kicking off a land investment division and has tapped a local executive to head it up.
Randy Teteak, former executive vice president at Irvine-based master developer SunCal Cos., announced this month that he’ll join CalAtlantic as national vice president of the Land Investment Fund.
The fund “is a strategic initiative for CalAtlantic to focus on land opportunities that are either outside the day to day purview of the operating divisions or would not otherwise have had a dedicated capital source,” Teteak said in an email announcing the move.
“By way of example, typical fund deals may require unique structures, have longer terms, and need entitlement or repositioning,” he said.
Teteak served at SunCal, long one of California’s largest master developers, for 10 years after a stint as president of now-defunct land brokerage O’Donnell/Atkins.
CalAtlantic was formed in 2015 when Irvine-based Standard Pacific Homes merged with Westlake Village-based Ryland Homes. The company’s market value is $3.9 billion.
CalAtlantic owned or controlled about 70,000 home lots as of last summer that it anticipates will provide it with a six-year supply.
The company would like to have a four-year supply of home lots, Chief Executive Larry Nicholson told analysts during the company’s last quarterly earnings call in October.
“It’s difficult out there buying land today,” he said. The company on the earnings call projected its 2016 land and land development expenditures would be about $1.7 billion.
