Mark Mueller’s P1 story “Aluminum” illustrates how a great reporter—who fairly exclusively writes exclusives—broke his latest. Mark drove by the industrial building at 2323 Von Karman last week and spied a “for lease” sign—at last. MM had been curious—class A industrial in the JWA corridor—unleased for more than five years? My Philip Morrow recalled a story in WSJ tying this building to others undergoing forfeiture against the same ownership group. He talked to people familiar with the building, and discovered why class A property had been “vacant.”
“About a year ago, I believe in a legal manner, I took photos of the inside of 2323 (see p1) showing pallets piled high and three trucks pulling in,” Mueller told me. “Inside were heavy pallets of aluminum” —meant to be melted down, used for other products, and to evade import tariffs, goes the feds’ prevailing theory as they now vie to seize the property. By the way, MM, it is legal, not an invasion of privacy, as anyone could see inside the warehouse.
HQ2 update: FivePoint’s Emile Haddad has never met Jeff Bezos. He has met Donald Bren. “I admire the man. I’ve been a student of Mr. Bren for 25 years, have the utmost respect,” Haddad told me. “What he’s done in terms of master planning is the best in the world.” Furthering that “friendship” is now relevant if Irvine is to be a serious contender (among 100+) in the Amazon HQ2 derby. That next meeting of the two most important planned community developers in OC should happen in the next few weeks. Haddad officially threw his hat and entitled land into the city of Irvine and the Irvine Co.’s Amazon HQ2 bid. He also threw his assets into bids by SF and LA. (FivePoint has sizeable, green-lighted projects in Newhall and two at the San Francisco Shipyards.) “I’m agnostic as to which city,” Haddad said. “I want this for California.” The largest private Great Park developer insists OC and Irvine meet Bezos’ lofty specs of 8M-SF of building to eventually house 50K highly-educated, tech-savvy Amazonians in 20-25K housing units. What don’t we have—today? “The lifestyle,” Haddad concedes, “the 24/7 lifestyle. The type of talent that Amazon attracts—[some 1,000+ of “WeWorks types” are already in Irvine]—want a sexy lifestyle. We don’t have that—we don’t have that yet. We’ve taken steps, and we can have that in Irvine.” He’ll need a partner. If the coming bid summit with Mr. Bren doesn’t resemble the DeNiro/Pacino meeting in “Heat,” but rather a partnership of rivals, that would give advocates of bringing the promised 50K, mostly $100K+ jobs, $5B in construction spending off the bat, more hope than “tilting at windmills.”
“I’m open to all options. I want this for Irvine, for California.” The price of poker went up, and Henry Gondorff has joined the table.
Inspiration Point: My 18-yr-old poodle Nixon went to heaven last weekend. Pictured is “Methuselah’s” final magic act. Still wonder why dog backwards is God?
