Standard Pacific Corp., one of a handful of builders to have opened a new Orange County home project outside the Irvine ranch of late with its Blackstone community in Brea, now has its eyes on a smaller infill development in Buena Park.
The Irvine-based company recently purchased an empty, five-acre site in Buena Park located at 6501 E. Orangethorpe Ave., near the Santa Ana (I-5) and Artesia (91) freeways.
The company plans to build 36 single-family homes running about 2,200 to 2,400 square feet. Prices are expected to start in the $600,000 range.
The plan is for the company to break ground in about two months, with models open by October, according to Ted McKibbin, president of Standard Pacific’s Orange County division.
The builder spent the past few months getting the site entitled for homes while the project still was in escrow, McKibbin said.
The proposed development sits in a neighborhood that’s largely a mix of homes and industrial buildings.
The site previously was a strawberry field. Salt Lake City’s Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints sold the property, which it had owned for several decades.
Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but the shrinking supply of ready-to-build home sites available for purchase in the county of late sparked strong interest from builders, according to David Knowlton, senior vice president for the Newport Beach office of brokerage NAI Capital.
“Activity was intense,” said Knowlton, who worked on the deal with David Bauman, a broker in NAI Capital’s Salt Lake City office.
One of the few other local sites to sell in the county of late—a Lake Forest parcel expected to hold 68 homes—went to Los Angeles-based KB Home for a reported $15 million.
The supply of buildable lots here “is dwindling,” according to McKibbin, which makes deals like the Buena Park purchase a good investment for the builder, he said.
“You have to react to that,” McKibbin said of current market conditions. The Buena Park project’s expected to be similar in nature to another infill development Standard Pacific is preparing in Marina del Rey, he said.
Closer to home, Standard Pacific is seeing strong sales at its Blackstone development, an 800-acre project in the hills between Brea and Fullerton that’s expected to hold nearly 360 homes.
The project is being developed by Walnut’s Shea Homes and Standard Pacific.
At Standard Pacific’s lower-priced Sorano homes at Blackstone, which start a little more than $500,000, there have been 14 sales to date. Castillian homes, which run closer to the $1 million mark, have seen seven sales, McKibbin said.
Bascom High-Rise
Irvine-based apartment investor Bascom Group LLC recently got one of its most notable properties to date through a receivership sale.
The company, best known for its portfolio of low-rise apartment complexes, recently closed on the buy of the Davis Building, a 20-story complex in downtown Dallas.
The building, a one-time office property built in 1926, was converted to apartments in 2003 for a reported $35 million. It’s about 95% leased.
Terms of the receivership sale weren’t immediately disclosed. Lenders who financed the project put it on the market in September, according to a report in the Dallas Morning News.
The Davis Building counts 183 loft-style apartment units and 52,235 square feet of retail space.
Ontario Deal
Aliso Viejo’s CT Realty Investors picked up another industrial building in the Inland Empire.
The company’s latest acquisition is in Ontario, where it bought the Champagne Building, a 386,000-square-foot industrial warehouse located about two miles from the Ontario International Airport.
The building, which also includes roughly 16,800 square feet of office space, is about half full. Amcor PET Packaging is the building’s main tenant.
The sale price was $17 million, or about $44 per square foot. RGR Development Corp. of Scottsdale, Ariz., was the seller.
The building is located on a 15.3-acre site and previously was listed for sale at $20.1 million, according to brokerage data.
Chicago-based real estate investment management firm Heitman LLC provided financing and took an equity stake in the deal.
CT Realty now owns more than 3.3 million square feet of industrial space in the Inland Empire, with a good portion of its portfolio bought in the past year.
After being devastated during the downturn, things are starting to look up for the area’s industrial market, according to CT Realty officials. The uptick’s been fueled in part by a 20% increase in port traffic in 2010 compared to 2009, said Carter Ewing, CT Realty executive vice president.
The area “is well on its way to equilibrium,” Ewing said.
