Plenty of developers hold blow-out grand opening events. Few do blow-up demolition events as well as Bob Olson.
The R.D. Olson Development founder last week marked the beginning of the expansion of Newport Beach’s Lido House with an event highlighted by the demolition of a 1950s era firehouse next door to his 130-room boutique hotel, which opened in 2018 at the site of the former Newport Beach City Hall.
Olson recently closed on the city-owned land that held the roughly 10,000-square-foot firehouse, in a deal financed by PNC. The additional land will help Lido House double the number of townhome-style cottages on the property, running about 1,500-sq.-ft. each, to 10 units, along with adding parking and other amenities.
Attendees at the March 3 event included several dozen current and former firefighters who had worked at the station over the decades, Newport Beach Mayor Joe Stapleton and a few former mayors, and notables including R&B Wire’s Rick Rawlins, New Majority OC Chairman Emeritus Lucy Rawlins, homebuilding exec Al Baldwin, and Roger’s Gardens’ Gavin Herbert Jr.
Attendees were given spray paint to decorate the fire station before a crane began knocking down the building.
The event was the second recent demolition party for Olson in the area in the past few years; he also held a similar gathering a mile away on Lido Island, to knock down an older property he had bought, to make way for a recently completed waterfront home.
Bob Olson and Palmer Luckey first met at the Business Journal’s 2019 Excellence in Entrepreneurship Awards event; the R.D. Olson CEO was the keynote speaker, while the Anduril Industries founder was one of five award winners that year.
Luckey’s Costa Mesa-based defense contractor was valued under $1 billion at the time; it’s now said to have a valuation approaching $28B. See the front page for more on how Newport Beach’s CT Realty is helping Anduril with one of the largest build-to-suit developments in the U.S. in years.
Olson and Luckey now live a few doors away from each other on Lido Island, and Olson is an investor in Anduril.
Looking to make a connection? This year’s Excellence in Entrepreneurship Awards is March 20 at the Irvine Marriott. Shopoff Realty Investments’ Bill Shopoff is the keynote speaker.
It’s been a big year for Tony Moiso, the Chairman and CEO of developer and ranching co. Rancho Mission Viejo LLC. See the front-page story on the RMV family’s $50M gift to Providence Mission Hospital Foundation, for an expansion of the hospital’s operations in South Orange County.
RMV last year ranked No. 1 among Orange County’s best-selling master planned communities, with 476 sales in 2024, according to John Burns Research & Consulting. It’s the first time in recent memory RMV outpaced sales at both the Irvine Ranch and Great Park Neighborhoods.
