The busiest residential builder in Orange County over the past year didn’t report selling a single home in 2012.
That’s no worry for Irvine-based California Pacific Homes Inc., which has reinvented itself in the wake of the recession to become one of the area’s busiest general contractors.
The company spent much of last year focused on the hot market for apartments.
Its latest work will go on display next week, when Newport Beach-based Irvine Company holds the grand opening of Los Olivos, a high-end apartment complex on a site that formerly held the Wild Rivers Waterpark in the Irvine Spectrum.
Los Olivos will have 1,750 units when fully built, making it the largest apartment project in Orange County’s history. That will eclipse another project that counted California Pacific as general contractor: the 1,677-unit Cypress Village complex that Irvine Co. opened last year along the Santa Ana (I-5) Freeway and Jeffrey Road.
The first 200 apartments built by California Pacific at Los Olivos—a mix of one- and two-bedroom units, including some with a townhome design that’s new for Irvine Co.—are now complete and ready for leasing. The rest are slated to open in phases through next year.
Adds Up
California Pacific’s work on Cypress Village and the apartments completed so far at Los Olivos appear to match the combined work of the area’s largest homebuilders over the same time on a unit basis.
The 26 largest homebuilders sold a total of 1,821 new homes in Orange County last year, a 3% increase from a year ago, according to this week’s Business Journal list (see story, page 27).
California Pacific didn’t make this week’s list this year after taking the No.7 spot last year with the sale of 99 homes in 2011, according to data from the Costa Mesa office of Washington, D.C.-based real estate research firm Hanley Wood LLC.
The list only includes sales of homes and condos. Dozens of new apartment projects in Orange County have opened up, or begun development in earnest over the past year, according to Business Journal data.
California Pacific didn’t have any home sales directly tied to its name last year, but it still has a hand in the segment, acting as a general contractor for Irvine Pacific LP, according to sources.
Irvine Pacific
Irvine Pacific, the in-house homebuilding division of Irvine Co., led all local builders with 439 sales in OC last year, more than the next three largest builders’ combined sales, Hanley Wood’s data shows.
California Pacific’s ties to Irvine Co.— now California’s largest owner of apartments—have undoubtedly helped its transition into multi-family home construction.
The homebuilder, previously known as The Bren Co., was started decades ago by Donald Bren, chairman of the Irvine Company.
He sold the company in 2000 on undisclosed terms to his son, Cary Bren, who had spent two years as its president.
California Pacific built more than 2,000 homes in the county in the years after the sale, primarily on land purchased from Irvine Co.
The company stopped building when the housing market crashed, and effectively mothballed operations by early 2009.
It began taking on a few projects a couple years later.
California Pacific’s future as a builder of single-family homes could change with the emergence of Irvine Pacific as the primary builder on Irvine Co. land over the past few years.
Flourishes
Still, it has brought some high-end flourishes typically seen in high-end single-family homes to the Los Olivos apartments, which stands out for more than its size, according to Kevin Baldridge, president of Irvine Co.’s apartment division, which oversees some 125 complexes and 44,000 apartment units.
The location on the old Wild Rivers site and various design elements make Los Olivos “arguably the finest apartment community we have ever built,” said Baldridge, whose company has plans to add some 10,000 or more new apartments here and in Northern California over the next five or so years.
Units will offer kitchen islands with pendant lighting, stainless steel appliances, polished chrome plumbing fixtures, hardwood floors, ceramic bath tile flooring, and crown molding, among other features.
Elevators
There also are a few types of buildings that are new for Irvine Co. including some with ground-level parking and elevator access to the residences.
Monthly rents at the complex, which will count six salt-water pools, four fitness centers, and a walkway to the Spectrum shopping center, are expected to run from $1,650 to $2,950.
Irvine Co. officials estimate work at Los Olivos kept 650 workers busy on a daily basis at the peak of its construction schedule.
