OCMA Aims for $12.5M Per Acre; All Sorts of Sports

Members of our OC’s Wealthiest list—the centerpiece of a Special Report that starts on page 15— enjoyed a good turn in terms of their finances over the past 12 months, even with the sharp dip for the Dow Jones late last week. The Orange County Museum of Art expects a nice turn of its own in coming months, according to folks in the know. The museum recently said it’s in talks to sell the building and nearly 2 acres of land it owns on San Clemente Drive in Newport Center to Related Cos. The best available comp as talks opened was the sale of another Newport Center parcel—the site of a car wash that’s right on the edge of Fashion Island and went for $10 million an acre in February. Reliable sources say word from the negotiating table indicates OCMA could get $25 million, which would come to $12.5 million an acre—money that would go toward a new home for the museum on the Segerstrom Center campus in Costa Mesa. Same sources figure nearly 100 upscale condos for the spot—a number that would fall within limits currently on the city’s books for the area … Sports factors into several aspects of this year’s OC’s Wealthiest, including erstwhile Los Angeles Clippers co-owner Shelly Sterling’s inclusion on the Weekend Wealthy list on page 35 … Credit Sterling’s husband, Donald, with a backhanded assist on a boost in our estimate for Arte Moreno’s fortune. The firestorm Sterling set off with his offensive remarks about African-Americans led to the $2 billion sale of the Clippers—a deal that gave a general lift to valuations of big-market sports franchises … The price Sterling stumbled onto exceeds the $2.15 billion fetched by the Dodgers two years ago when you take into consideration the fact that the Clippers didn’t come with a stadium and surrounding real estate. The bold bid for the Dodgers by Guggenheim Partners was, in any case, a harbinger that came as a surprise to most observers—but not Peter Ueberroth, who has been ahead of the times for some time when it comes to the business of sports. “The Dodgers baseball franchise is, in my view, the most valuable franchise in baseball,” Ueberroth said—way back in 1997, when the O’Malley family put the team up for sale … Ueberroth’s credentials as a former Olympics honcho and MLB Commissioner give him a unique perspective—and don’t forget that he still has a hand in the business of sports as co-chairman of Pebble Beach Co. He offers his perspective on OC’s impressive group of high-end resorts in a story on page 1 … Kobe Bryant appears again on the Wealthiest list, and he left another clue on his business acumen last week when he struck a deal to buy the former Road & Track building in Newport Beach. Bryant bought the 16,550-square-foot office building at 1499 Monrovia Ave. for $5.8 million. The building comes with a built-in zoning change to residential slated for 2022. Or Bryant could ask the city to keep its current commercial zoning … We think Dale Fowler was kidding—can’t say for sure—when he sent along this message when contacted about the estimate that made him the newest member of Wealthiest list: “Please, no more solicitations, except from Jim Doti” … Our Mark Mueller reports that the retail portion of the Pacific City development in Huntington Beach will follow a recent trend with an emphasis on food, à la the Packing House in Anaheim. Pacific City is off to a good start—it’s landed Bear Flag Fish Co. as its first foodie tenant.