Michael Arnold has joined NAI Capital’s West Los Angeles office as a director and executive vice president of tenant consulting for the Southern California region, a representative of the firm confirmed on Monday.
Arnold, who was a longtime managing director at Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, left the firm in November 2016, sources said.
In April, the Daily Mail reported that a former NGKF employee under the alias “Jane Doe” filed a massive lawsuit against the brokerage, alleging sexual harassment. The suit named Arnold as well as senior executives John Picard and David Kutzer.
“Mike looks forward to enhancing an already strong platform that will reflect his vision for future tenant representation,” the NAI representative said, adding that Rick Gold, senior executive managing director of NAI’s West L.A. office, had been trying to recruit him for several years.
Tara-Jane Flynn, an attorney representing Arnold, said he had not been officially served with the “Jane Doe” lawsuit, which was filed in April in Superior Court. Attorneys for Jane Doe could not immediately be reached for comment.
A rendering of the new Marriott hotel set to open in October 2017 in Irvine, Orange County. Credit: R.D. Olson
From the April issue: As L.A.’s real estate boom continues, investors in surrounding Southern California counties are basking in its glow. Read on for a closer look at what’s happening in San Diego, Orange and Ventura counties.
San Diego County
As San Diego enjoys a biotech boom, new residential developments are flourishing, in part to meet the demand of the growing workforce in the coastal county.
This year, about 7,000 apartment units will be added to the San Diego market, up from the 4,000 units that were added in 2016, according to Steve Hovland, director of research for HomeUnion, which builds and manages real estate portfolios for individual investors.
Among the noteworthy developments in the county is The Park in upscale Bankers Hill, a 14-story, 60-unit residential building due to be completed in summer 2017 by San Diego development and investment firm Zephyr.
New residences are also popping up in the suburbs. A modest 75-room hotel in El Cajon will be converted into apartments, according to the San Diego Business Journal. Plans were also recently approved for the $30 million Carlsbad Village Lofts, which will include 106 apartments. And in neighboring Santee, KB Home launched sales at its single-family residential development, River Village.
“From both a commercial and residential standpoint, San Diego is on solid footing,” said Hovland. “We are seeing above-average growth, which will stay that way through 2017.”
Richard Freeark, senior vice president of the San Diego region at C.W. Driver — a top building firm in the state — described the real estate sector as “very positive.”
“The hospitality sector is strong, renovations of current retail properties are ongoing, and projects that have been on hold are taking root and moving forward,” Freeark said.
In 2016, local employers added 32,000 new positions in technology and biotech, a field that accounts for 24 percent of the region’s GDP. About 26,000 more local jobs in the field will be added in 2017, according to research by HomeUnion.
“A lot of people don’t realize that San Diego has its own presence of biotechnology firms,” said Freeark, adding that exorbitant property values in tech-heavy locations such as Silicon Valley and Silicon Beach have pushed companies toward alternative communities.
Orange County
Foreign buyers, particularly from markets in the Far East and Middle East, have helped to fuel ongoing developments in Orange County’s residential, commercial and multi-use sectors.
Upcoming projects include the 68-acre Five Lagunas, on the site of the former Laguna Hills Mall, which will encompass approximately 350 high-end apartments, a park with water features, a movie theater and retail space.
But experts warn that a glut of supply could put a damper on the rental market. According to research conducted by HomeUnion, rising rental housing inventory in both multifamily and single-family homes “will place downward pressure on 2017 rents, which will moderate to growth of 2.8 percent in 2017.”
The company suggested that investors could find stronger appreciation in properties around the coastal communities of Huntington Beach and Costa Mesa, or inland, in Tustin and Yorba Linda.
At the moment, the overall market mood within the county is hopeful. “The recent modest increase in interest rates has actually motivated many buyers to get off the fence and purchase,” said Gary Longobardo, brokerage manager at Engel & Völkers Newport Beach. “Optimism in the economy is very high right now throughout the OC.”
That has led to a boost in hospitality ventures as well. The 15-story Marriott Irvine Spectrum close to the 5 and 405 freeways in Irvine is set to open in October, and the Lido House, a boutique hotel in Newport Beach, is set to begin receiving guests in 2018.
“Los Angeles is on fire, and Orange County has started to pick up some of that momentum,” said Bill Wilhelm, president of Irvine-based R.D. Olson Construction.
Ventura County
Though this county’s booming agricultural industry limits options for redevelopment, its plains, mountains and beaches are an attractive draw for property hunters looking to take advantage of more affordable prices outside Los Angeles. Developer Watt Communities’ upcoming 91-home project Enclave, for example — where houses will start in the low $500,000s for 1,637 square feet and up — has already seen brisk sales.
On the commercial front, a joint-venture deal struck in December 2016 between the Bascom Group and Harbor Associates will revamp the 159,186-square-foot, two-building Conejo Spectrum in Thousand Oaks.
Paul Miszkowicz, a principal at Harbor, told the Ventura County Business Journal that the acquisition represents its sixth value-add office purchase in the last year and a half in Southern California and its first in the L.A. region.
“We intend on building on our recent momentum by sourcing new opportunities and pursuing similar strategies in high-demand Southern California submarkets in order to meet our acquisition goal of $250 million by year end 2017,” Miszkowicz said.
Santa Barbara County
Santa Barbara’s scenic coastline and pedigreed heritage have made it one of the most enviable — and priciest — counties in Southern California. Zoning and construction laws are notoriously tight: It can take between four and eight years for approvals to be granted.
The most significant new residential development in the past decade, Estancia, will come onto the market this September. Located on Santa Barbara’s illustrious State Street, the project is a collaboration between local developer Franciscan Developments, William Hezmalhalch Architects and the Cearnal Collective design firm. Prices will start at around $1 million for the project’s 72 Spanish Colonial homes.
In Montecito, TV host and high-end house flipper Ellen DeGeneres and wife Portia de Rossi put their six-bedroom home on the market for $45 million. The two bought it for $26.3 million in 2013 and acquired two adjacent properties after the initial purchase. They’d been using the property — complete with two swimming pools and an outdoor kitchen — as a weekend home, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Riverside County
Though known for its tract housing, this Inland Empire county is also home to the Coachella Valley (with its high-profile annual music festival) and the resorts in Palm Springs and La Quinta.
The new residential development PGA West, a 2,000-acre golf and lifestyle community in La Quinta, is counting on the area’s attractiveness to vacationers. The development’s homes are priced from the low $300,000s to the $800,000s.
On the commercial side of things, construction has begun on a 73,000-square-foot retail development in the city of Eastvale, in northwestern Riverside. Slated for a fall 2017 completion, the Eastvale Marketplace will be anchored by a 30,560-square-foot Smart & Final Extra! discount grocery store.
Experts say the developments are good news for an area that was hit hard during the recession.
“House prices collapsed 60 percent, but one of the things that’s surprised me is how well it’s come back,” said Richard Green, director and chair of the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate, who added, “The industrial market in the Inland Empire is on fire.”
San Bernadino County
Spanning just over 20,000 square miles, San Bernardino is the largest county in the U.S. by area, encompassing cities such as Yucaipa, Rancho Cucamonga and Upland.
One of the most anticipated upcoming projects is a mixed-use development along Rancho Cucamonga’s main thoroughfare, Foothill Boulevard. Plans have been approved for The Vintner, a 182-unit complex on five acres including a four-story building consisting of live-work spaces, common areas, a courtyard and pool. It will also offera skydeck, an outdoor common kitchen, rooftop fireplaces and communal dining facilities, according to the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin.
Developer Fore Property Co. of Santa Barbara is working on The Vintner with Rancho Cucamonga-based real estate consulting firm Charles Joseph Associates, whose president, Chuck Buquet, said the multi-use live-work aspects of the property would attract young professionals.
Rendering of 500 W. Broadway and Ensemble CEO Randy McGrane
Ensemble, a Phoenix-based real estate firm, is gearing up to build a 142-unit apartment complex in Downtown Long Beach.
The seven-story project, which also calls for ground-floor commercial space, scored approvals from the city’s planning commission last week.
The development, at 500 W. Broadway, would contain 65 studio apartments, 41 one-bedroom units, 32 two-bedroom units and four three-bedroom units, according to Curbed. The ground floor amenities would include retail space, a cafe or market, a small office and an exterior patio.
Ensemble is so stranger to Long Beach. The company owns the Hotel Maya near the Queen Mary and has four multifamily projects in the works in the area, including a 274-unit complex at Pacific Avenue and West 3rd Street and a 112-unit apartment building across from the Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center, according to its website. [Curbed] — Cathaleen Chen
Chinese millennials on their smartphones (Credit: Getty Images)
From TRD New York: While millennials in the U.S. are often known as perennial renters, their counterparts in China are snapping up overseas homes on their smartphones.
Apps like Uoolu, which helps buyers open bank accounts and apply for mortgages in other countries, enable Chinese millennials to easily purchase foreign properties, the Wall Street Journal reported. These young buyers are driven by a weakening yuan and increasingly strict controls on the amount of capital permitted to leave the country. Families can sometimes get around these rules by pooling money and sending it separately into overseas bank accounts. “The more the government limits people, the more they want to invest overseas,” Wang Hao, Uoolu’s chief operating officer, told the Journal.
One New York City broker told the Journal that his client, an accountant in her 20s who works in New York, pooled together more than $100,000 from relatives in China to buy a condo in Manhattan.
Buyers also are often looking to purchase homes for their children to use when they study abroad. According to a recent survey by HSBC, 70 percent of Chinese millennials — those born between 1981 and 1998 — own their own home. In the U.S., that number drops to 31 percent. [WSJ] — Kathryn Brenzel
While the Westside of Los Angeles is benefitting from steady hiring and leasing by entertainment and media companies, rent growth in Downtown L.A. barely kept pace with inflation over the past year, according to a forecast by Savills Studley. The firm predicts those trends continuing for the balance of 2017, the forecast shows.
While rents rose for the third straight year in Downtown L.A.— they were up 2.9 percent $3.50 a square foot a month — Downtown landlords began to ramp up concessions due to cooling demand, according to the report. In some cases, concessions offset rental rate increases entirely.
“As 2016 was coming to a close, some owners were already starting to adjust lease terms in response to cooling demand,” the report said. “Leasing activity is expected to lose more steam in 2017.”
Meanwhile, on the Westside, rents skyrocketed for the fourth year in a row, by nearly 8 percent to $4.92 per square foot. Savills predicts that rent growth will continue, as leasing volume for Class A exceeds the long-term average by more than 10 percent.
“Landlords pushed rent sharply higher,” the report reads. “Investors continue to pay a premium for assets on the Westside, in several cases exceeding $500 [per square foot] and putting additional upward pressure on rent.”
Savills director of U.S. analytics Keith DeCoster attributed the disparity between the two areas to the different nature of the tenant base.
“The divergence is that DTLA has struggled to [continue growth] as it’s reliant on traditional tenants such as law firms and banks, while on the Westside, the creative tech tenants naturally generate more growth and more competition,” he told The Real Deal.
Among the major deals inked on the West Side in recent months, video game developer Riot Games more than doubled its lease at Kilroy Realty’s Westside Media Center, to over 154,000 square feet at the three-building office on Olympic Boulevard.
Downtown, Cushman & Wakefield announced that it had signed a long-term lease at the Wilshire Grand Center, a 2.1-million-square-foot office tower by Hanjin International Corp., an affiliate of Korean Air.
Neil Shekhter and a rendering of NMS Properties’ Wilshire & La Jolla tower at 6401 Wilshire Boulevard (Credit: Urban Land Institute, Steinberg Architects)
A Los Angeles judge indicated that she would deny Santa Monica developer Neil Shekhter’s bid to avoid paying $6 million in fees to capital management firm AEW, following a legal battle between the two companies.
The $6 million is related to sanctions imposed on Shekhter for allegedly forging a document key to the 2014 suit, which centered around control of nine Westside multifamily properties, including luxe apartment developments in West Hollywood, Santa Monica and Culver City.
Last year, Shekhter was ordered to relinquish control of the assets in addition to paying for AEW’s $6 million legal fees.
The decision is just the latest in the saga between Shekhter and AEW. In the 2014 suit, Shekhter and his firm NMS accused AEW of reneging on terms allowing NMS to buy out AEW’s stake in a joint venture.
AEW then countersued, alleging that Shekhter forged documents and violated the terms of their joint venture agreement. [LAW360] — Subrina Hudson
Rendering of UCLA as Olympic Village (Credit: LA 2014 via Curbed)
Paris may have a fancy tower, but L.A.’s got the sea.
And that’s why Santa Monica Beach, along with a dozen of other major Los Angeles landmarks, is featured in La La Land’s bid for the 2024 Olympics.
Paris and L.A. are the only two cities remaining in contention for the games. In the latest renderings released by LA 2014, the city’s committee in the bid, Santa Monica Beach would be the venue for beach volleyball, Curbed reported.
The UCLA campus would serve as the Olympic Village, while the Forum arena in Inglewood would be used for gymnastics, and Pasadena’s Rose Bowl would be utilized for soccer. The terrain of San Dimas’ Frank G. Bonelli Regional Park would be perfect for mountain biking, and Lake Perris would be used for rowing.
The UCLA campus itself would undergo renovations before the games.
Members of the International Olympic Committee will visit L.A. this week to assess the city. They will make their choice in September. [Curbed] — Cathaleen Chen
Rashard Mendenhall, Parthenia Street home (Getty Images/MLS)
Retired professional football player Rashard Mendenhall scooped up the former home of late comedian and actor Richard Pryor last week for $2.5 million, or $424 a square foot.
The estate, in the San Fernando Valley’s Sherwood Forest, was the site where Pryor once set himself on fire after days of freebasing cocaine.
The 2.2-acre property features six buildings totaling more than 9,000 square feet of living space, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Described as the “Wrigley chewing gum estate” by Barbara Walters, the compound’s main home has four bedrooms and four bathrooms in addition to a library and billiards room. The other buildings include: a guest home, a pool house, a gym/dance studio, an office and a children’s playhouse.
Outside, there are tennis, tetherball and basketball courts, a putting green and a kennel.
Mendenhall was in the NFL for six seasons, splitting his time between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Arizona Cardinals. He now works as a writer for the HBO series “Ballers.”
Neil McDermott and Beate Kessler-McDermott of Hilton & Hyland represented the buyer and seller. [LAT] — Subrina Hudson
Jonathan Litt, Construction at Beverly Center (Land & Buildings/Beverly Center)
From TRD Miami: Taubman Centers, operator of the Beverly Center that is currently undergoing a $500 million renovation, is battling with activist investor Jonathan Litt’s hedge fund, after it filed documents to nominate Litt and a corporate governance guru to Taubman’s board.
Taubman, a Bloomfield Hills, Michigan-based real estate investment trust, said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it has reviewed the nominees from Litt’s hedge fund, Land & Buildings Investment Management LLC, and decided its own candidates are much more qualified.
Land & Buildings wants its own nominees to replace Taubman Chief Executive Robert Taubman and lead director Myron E. Ullman III at the company’s annual meeting in June, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Litt is founder and chief investment officer of Land & Buildings, which owns about 1.2 percent of the REIT.
Mall operators are struggling as retailers across the country close shops and file for bankruptcy protection, amid heated competition from online shopping. Publicly traded mall operators are seeing shareholders push them to slash costs and sell off assets.
Taubman currently operates 27 shopping centers in the United States and Asia, including the Beverly Center in Los Angeles, as well as malls in Palm Desert and Concord, Calif. It is also in charge of the retail mix, along with the Forbes Co., at the upcoming Miami Worldcenter. The developers last year scrapped plans for an enclosed mall in favor of high street retail.
In the first quarter, Taubman reported 3.9 percent growth in net operating income and 1.2 percent growth in sales per square foot compared with the same period a year earlier. Occupancy remained at 92.3 percent as of March 31, unchanged from a year earlier, the Journal reported.
But analysts have noted that its occupancy may be questionable after the firm raised its 2017 guidance for income from lease cancellation to $10 million to $12 million from $5 million to $6 million. It is customary for a tenant to pay a termination fee to the landlord when it breaks its lease, according to the Journal. [WSJ] — Ina Cordle
Star Theatre, famous for showing pornographic films from the 1970s to the 1990s, may be getting the boot.
The new owners of the dilapidated theater in La Puente filed site plans with city officials last month to demolish the structure and develop a 22-unit condominium building.
But Arteologists, a local nonprofit, hopes to convince the city and the building’s owner, Linda Young, to renovate the theater building and repurpose it into a venue for community events, the Pasadena Star-News reported.
Young purchased the building through the entity Star of La Puente in April 2016 for $1.12 million, property records show.
The company does not have a permit to demolish the building but it has submitted site plans, building elevations and other development documents to La Puente city officials for review, according to the Star-News.
The city’s planning commission and city council have not yet reviewed the plans for the new development, and the developer attached to the project is unclear.
The theater lost its adult entertainment permit in 2000 amid allegations of prostitution, lewd conduct and several health code violations. Its former owner renovated Star and reopened it as a family theater, but business was slow and it eventually closed.
A previous owner also had plans to develop condominiums on the site as part of a mixed-use project in the mid-2000s but those plans never panned out.
Young said the building would need extensive renovations to bring it up to code and there would be “no way we can keep it.” [PSN] — Subrina Hudson
6225 Quebec Drive and Doris Roberts (Credit: Wikipedia)
The home of late actress Doris Roberts, who starred in beloved sitcom “Everybody Loves Raymond,” has hit the market for $2.45 million, or roughly $648 per square foot.
The 3,700-square-foot Hollywood Hills home, known as Casa De Glade, dates back to 1927 and was built for “Casablanca” producer Hal Wallis. The three-bedroom Spanish Colonial, at 6225 Quebec Drive, features a “step-down den” that also doubles as a speakeasy.
The property is rumored to have once been home to James Dean, according to the Los Angeles Times. Roberts, who died last year aged 90, bought it in 1976 for $138,000. The home sits on a double lot of more than 11,600 square feet and includes a formal dining room, a great room with beamed ceilings, a sun room and a swimming pool.
Roger Perry of Rodeo Realty has the listing. [LATimes] — Miriam Hall
From TRD New York: One of JLL’s largest shareholders is threatening to oppose the company chairman’s reelection bid over the $11 million compensation package the brokerage gave to outgoing Chief Executive Colin Dyer amid weak returns for shareholders in the past few years.
“We believe this is a clear example of pay for failure,” Alexander Marshall, a partner with the London-based asset management firm Generation Investment Management, wrote in a letter in the letter to a proxy advisory firm, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Marshall’s letter went on to say that the agreement “makes one wonder whether [it] was written by Mr. Dyer himself rather than independent board members supposed acting in the interests of shareholders.”
Generation Investment owns a 7.5 percent stake in JLL. The company said it plans to vote against JLL Chairman Sheila Penrose’s reelection at the company’s upcoming shareholder meeting after the firm’s recently filed proxy statement showed that JLL paid Dyer a compensation package that included salary, pension and incentive plan compensation totaling $11.3 million in 2016.
Representatives for JLL and Dyer declined to comment.
Dyer unexpectedly announced his resignation in September as JLL’s shares continued to slide. At the end of the trading day on Monday, company shares on the New York Stock Exchange were down 23.3 percent from where they were at the beginning of 2016. Shares of CBRE, by comparison, were up 5.1 percent during the same period.
While revenues from brokerage commissions at both companies have declined due to the drop in sales in the U.S. and Europe, CBRE has moved quicker to replace commission revenue from recurring revenue streams such as property management, William Blair & Co. analyst Brandon Dobell told the Journal.
JLL’s investments in technology and employees “hurt margins in the near term more than people expected,” Dobell wrote in an email to the Journal.
Generation pointed out that JLL paid Dyer more than CBRE paid its CEO, despite the fact that the latter was “better run.”
Last year, The Real Deal took a look at compensation packages for some of the real estate industry’s highest-paid CEOs. [WSJ] – Rich Bockmann
The number of homeless people in Santa Monica jumped sharply last year, with many coming from other parts of Los Angeles.
A recent count showed there were 921 homeless residents in Santa Monica, a 26 percent increase from 728 people a year earlier, according to a report provided to the Santa Monica City Council.
Out of the people surveyed, 30 percent had been living in Santa Monica for under a month and 46 percent had come to the area from elsewhere in LA., Curbed reported. More than 30 percent were originally from outside California.
Across Los Angeles, more than 47,000 people sleep in their cars, or in tents on the streets, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. The number of people living on the street went up by 39 percent last year, while people living in cars and encampments jumped by 26 percent, according to Curbed. The shelter population in the city also increased, by 9 percent. [Curbed] — Miriam Hall
Lincoln Boulevard apartments, Neil Shekhter (Google Maps)
A fire damaged a Santa Monica apartment building that is part of a legal battle between developer Neil Shekhter’s firm NMS Properties and its former joint venture partner AEW Capital Management.
The fire was caused by an underground electrical vault, which exploded in the parking garage on Monday.
Thirty-four Santa Monica Police officers and firemen arrived and extinguished the flames in 20 minutes, Santa Monica Observed reported.
Residents have been evacuated from the five-story, mixed-use apartment building and parking garage at 1447 Lincoln Boulevard. It is unknown when they will be allowed to return.
None of the units were affected by the fire and investigators are working to determine the cause, said Captain Patrick Nulty of the Santa Monica Fire Department.
The building is temporarily under the management of Lincoln Property Co. A judge ordered the firm to step in and assume the day-to-day operations at the building until the legal battle between Shekhter and AEW is resolved. The rent it collects will go into an escrow fund until a resolution is reached.
Earlier this week, a Los Angeles judge indicated that she would deny Shekhter’s bid to avoid paying $6 million in fees to capital management firm AEW’s attorneys. [SMO] — Subrina Hudson
The Standard Oil Building (credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Lenders recently began foreclosure proceedings on a loan attached to the historic Standard Oil Building at 605 W. Olympic Boulevard in Downtown Los Angeles, The Real Deal has learned.
The building’s owners defaulted on the $13.47 million CMBS loan package, which is now in foreclosure, said a spokesperson for the real estate analytics firm Trepp.
The securitized loan was originated by Eurohypo AG a decade ago and was classified as non-performing beyond maturity as of February, according to Trepp data.
The building’s owner is a partnership dubbed MLCO LLC, which is linked to fashion mogul Marc Bohbot, who is behind fashion brands like XOXO and Bisou Bisou, and investor Shahriyar Akhlaghfar, records show.
Neither could be reached for comment.
The 102,587-square-foot building, a designated city landmark that was designed by George Kelham, dates back to 1924 and sits just a few blocks from the Staples Center, between Hope and Flower Streets. In recent years, the property has seen a drop off in occupancy, from nearly 100 percent to just 55 percent, leaving the owners unable to pay the debt, according to Trepp.
The property’s largest tenant is the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising , which occupies 34,991 square feet.
Johnny Depp and the Eastern Columbia Building at 849 South Broadway
While actor Johnny Depp prepares for the release of his upcoming “Pirates of the Caribbean” film, another script is starting to unravel in the star’s personal life.
Depp is embroiled in a legal spat with his former business managers over lost fortunes totaling $650 million — the most quantifiable aspect of which is his massive real estate portfolio.
The actor filed a suit earlier this year against the Management Group (TMG) and attorneys Joel and Robert Mandel alleging financial misconduct. But TMG countersued alleging that Depp failed to pay its commission on his income from the new “Pirates” film and that the celebrity is “responsible for his own financial waste,” the Hollywood Reporter reported.
Mandel insisted Depp sell his 45-acre chateau in the South of France in May 2015 to help pull the actor out of debt. The property was listed for $27 million, twice Sotheby’s valuation, but ex-partner Vanessa Paradis and their daughter Lily-Rose Depp urged Depp to change his mind. The property was taken off the market, but it has since been relisted for $39 million, according to THR.
The actor owns five homes in the Hollywood Hills, worth an estimated $19 million. He has sold two of his five penthouse lofts in the Eastern Columbia Building in downtown Los Angeles for $5.6 million with the remaining three worth about $6.5 million, according to THR.
Depp also owns an atoll in the Bahamas and a hamlet in France. Together his properties are worth between $50 to $60 million. [THR] — Subrina Hudson
An entity attached to developer Fred Afari is planning an 11-unit apartment building on an empty piece of land in Echo Park, plans filed with the city this week show.
The four-story building directly across from Echo Park Lake at 1601 Park Avenue would span just over 12,400 square feet and would include 16 parking spaces, the Eastsider reported.
In 2015, Afari picked up the plot of land when he paid $18 million for the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel’s 15-property Echo Park portfolio, the Los Angeles Business Journal reported at the time.
The portfolio included nine multifamily properties, two single-family homes, three land parcels and one warehouse building, all in proximity to Echo Park Lake.
The land where the proposed new building would rise was previously the site of a 1920s building that collapsed in 2000, killing one person and injuring 35 more.
David Schwartzman and the site at 333 N. Prairie Ave (Google Earth)
When Tupac said that Inglewood is “always up to no good,” he may not have envisioned the gated condo community that is now planned in the city, as the promise of a $2.6 billion Los Angeles Rams and Chargers stadium lures investors to the area.
Harridge Development Group bought an 18-acre plot, which includes the shuttered Daniel Freeman Hospital at 333 N. Prairie Avenue, from Shopoff Realty Investments for roughly $36.3 million this week, sources unattached to the transaction told The Real Deal.
Justin Esayian and Bryant Brislin of the Hoffman Company brokered the deal, but did respond to requests for comment.
A representative of Harridge confirmed the L.A.-based development firm, headed by David Schwartzman, intends to redesign Shopoff’s existing residential plans and will build 228 detached condos in a gated community called Grace Park.
Work on the site itself has already begun, though the expected completion date is not until the stadium opens in mid-2019.
Shopoff Group acquired the site for $20 million in 2013, and subsequently secured approvals to build 310 townhomes on the site. Harridge is now adjusting those plans for fewer units.
The Hollywood Park stadium development is not only attracting residential development to the area — it has a large housing component itself, comprised of 2,500 units. The development also includes a 300-key hotel and 25 acres of public parks, open space and pedestrian/bicycle access.
A partnership headed by Harridge recently purchased the 26-acre Los Angeles Times printing plant just south of the Arts District from Tribune Media’s real estate arm for $120 million, TRDfirst reported. The developer is also adapting Koreatown’s Wilshire Galleria into a mixed-use complex with 545 apartments, as well as stores, restaurants and a hotel.
Bel Air Road home, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt (MLS/Getty Images)
After legendary actress and socialite Zsa Zsa Gabor died late last year, real estate insiders began spreading word that her longtime Bel Air home was in escrow – but a sale never closed.
Now, however, it appears a buyer has sealed the deal on the purchase of the nearly 9,000-square-foot home, sources told The Real Deal.
It appears the new owner purchased the property for $10.4 million, according to Zillow.
Gabor bought the property at 1001 Bel Air Road in 1973 for $250,000. Cash-strapped, Gabor and her husband Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt sold the estate in 2013 to an entity connected to the development firm Jade Enterprises, owned by Albert Taban, property records show — but they continued to live there.
Part of Taban’s deal with the couple allowed them to remain at the estate for at least four years, or until Gabor’s death, paying $350,000 a year in rent, according to Curbed.
Jade does not appear to have listed the property on the market, indicating it was a whisper listing. It last officially listed in 2012, the year before Jade bought it, for $14.9 million, the MLS shows.
Zsa Zsa Gabor poolside at her Bel Air home (Getty Images)
The home has six bedrooms, seven bathrooms and a circle foyer with a large pool terrace. It has hosted several notable guests including Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra, and presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
The property, built in 1955, is rumored to have been commissioned by Howard Hughes, said listing agent Roger Perry of Rodeo Realty.
The home offers “300-degree views of Downtown, the Westside and the ocean,” Perry said.
Independent broker Janet Farzan represented the buyer.
