A robust market for multifamily housing has kept local architects busy with apartment and condominium projects.
The multifamily market was “the bright star in the recovery,” helping to bring Irvine-based architecture firm TCA back to prerecession levels of business, President Aram Chahbazian said.
“The dynamics of the marketplace have really spurred all this multifamily business,” Chahbazian said.
Those include a backlog of apartment development, which had paused mid-recession, and pent-up demand among prospective tenants who had to double up on housing during the recession.
“In OC, multifamily housing is predominantly what we do,” Chahbazian said. “We do some retail, but it’s a portion of our mixed-use buildings, where we do high-density urban projects with retail on the street level and housing above, with sub-terrain garages.”
Chahbazian was named president of TCA in April, after 29 years of working at the firm. TCA saw business grow by more than 25% in 12 months through June to $12.3 million.
The company has seen its billings double over the past two years. Headcount also more than doubled in the past year to about 80, with about 50 in the Irvine office and the rest in Los Angeles.
TCA was not immune to the recession and has had to weather a substantial hit in business and work force before it could see the recent growth spurt.
“In 2008, everything kind of stopped,” Chahbazian said. “That was pretty devastating, not only on us, but on the entire industry. [We cut] about 80% in [jobs]. And by the time we came out, we started seeing activity right around the first quarter of 2010. We became stronger toward the third quarter and started growing.”
Local Projects
Local work for TCA includes a 475-unit project in Huntington Beach for Irvine-based developer Sares-Regis Group. It’s a high-density project with more than 40 units in an acre.
The firm also has an ongoing project in Laguna Niguel, where it’s working on more than 280 residential units at Crown Valley Parkway and Cabot Road as part of the city’s Gateway Specific Plan.
It’s the second project to be approved in the Gateway Plan area, Chahbazian noted.
He added that the rally by multifamily housing is due in part to a push to get projects started before construction costs start to inch up.
“Construction costs have been depressed during the downturn, and as single-family housing starts coming back—which will happen in the next several years—the cost of construction will start driving up,” Chahbazian said.
KTGY Group Inc. also has been taking part in the multifamily boom, and its executives note an uptick in business from the single-family housing segment as well. The Irvine-based architecture and design firm has seen billings grow by almost 5% over the past year.
Its Orange County projects include Bonterra Apartment Homes, an affordable-housing development in Brea where 94 units opened in February. The firm also did design work for Doria Apartment Homes in Irvine, a community of 60 apartments that opened in October as the first rentals completed un-der the Irvine Community Land Trust.
Both communities were developed by Irvine-based Jamboree Housing Corp.
KTGY Chief Executive Tricia Esser said prospective buyers’ lack of confidence and their inability to secure financing have driven the surge in apartment renting.
“We are slowly starting to see financing become more available and be less of a headache to the borrower, which will in turn start to create demand again for a strong single-family market,” Esser said. “While apartments started a comeback last year, we are just now seeing the beginning of a recovery for the single-family market. We see this as a great opportunity to put something new on the market to spark a hesitant buyer’s interest.”
The current strength of the apartments market has been a key contribution at Architecture Orange, which doubled its billings in 12 months through June to $23.5 million, said Jack Selman, a senior partner in the firm.
“We only do multifamily, for-rent housing, (and) that happens to be the hot sector right now,” Selman said. “There’s a high demand, and funds are available.”
