Newport Beach-based R.D. Olson Development plans to build another hotel on an infill site in Los Angeles County, this time in Glendale.
The privately held company, the most active hotel developer in California over the past several years, filed plans this month with the city to build a six-story building with 147 rooms on a site that now holds a parking lot. It’s at the intersection of Wilson Avenue and Louise Street a few blocks from Rick Caruso’s Americana at Brand shopping center.
Along with 124 underground parking spaces, the development would feature a lounge, meeting space and swimming pool, according to planning filings.
WATG in Irvine is heading project design for “a contemporary interpretation of the Spanish Colonial Revival style.”
Plans were first reported by Urbanize LA.
A project brand for The Hotel Louise hasn’t been announced, but a Marriott International-branded hotel wouldn’t be a bad guess.
R.D. Olson was named Developer of the Year by Marriott International in June, one of several awards it’s gotten from Marriott in the past couple of years.
In Orange County, the company has high-profile projects under way in the Irvine Spectrum and at Lido Village in Newport Beach, both Marriott-branded hotels.
Elsewhere in L.A., it last year proposed a 21-story, art deco-inspired hotel on Sunset Boulevard in the heart of Hollywood that would hold 275 rooms.
The builder’s construction firm affiliate, R.D. Olson Construction, is also working with Candleberry Properties of L.A. to turn an 11-story tower in the Miracle Mile section of L.A. along Wilshire Boulevard into a 176-room Marriott AC Hotel brand, according to local news reports.
ARES Aspirations
Advanced Real Estate Services Inc., an Irvine-based apartment investor and developer that also operates as ARES, says it has plenty of cash on hand to fund acquisitions following a recently completed loan deal.
It said this month that it had obtained a $100.7 million loan from Freddie Mac, a good part of which is being used to refinance a 565-unit complex it owns in Lakewood near Long Beach.
The refinancing was arranged through Mike Elmore, managing director of the Newport Beach office of NorthMarq Capital.
ARES bought Lakewood Manor Apartments in 2005 for a reported $75 million and gave units a number of interior upgrades handled by ARES’ in-house construction company, R3.
Another upgrade came in additional parking spots made possible through construction of double-height garages that contain mechanical parking lifts. The lifts allow two vehicles to be parked in one parking space, and are powered by a low-voltage electric motor and hydraulic pump. They can hold a vehicle as heavy as 6,000 pounds, according to information from Vertical Parking Solutions, an Irvine-based provider of the lifts that’s also an ARES affiliate.
Individual lifts are valued at about $4,500, according to 2015 filings by Vertical Parking, which has added the feature to some of ARES’ apartment complexes in OC.
The garages with lifts “brought the resident’s cars off the street and on to the site which added significant value” to the Lakewood property, the company said in a statement.
The latest refinancing is part of ARES’ long-term-hold strategy to buy underperforming assets, upgrade and refinance them, and use the proceeds to expand its portfolio while maintaining current assets.
“With this refinance, we were able to pay off the existing loan, replenish the reserve accounts, and pull out over $40 million of excess proceeds to be used for future acquisitions,” said President Richard Julian.
“With the other refinancing we have completed this year, we now have in this fund alone well over $100 million of cash available for down payments on nearly a half a billion dollars of value-add acquisitions.”
ARES said it’s looking at “all marketed and off-market, multi-family opportunities in our target market of Southern California.”
The loan “is the second refinancing we have completed on the property since it was purchased by ARES,” said NorthMarq’s Elmore. “The original loan was with Downey Savings, which was taken over by the FDIC during the last recession. U.S. Bank then acquired the loan, and we refinanced them out with Freddie Mac in 2010.”
