20-Year Development Drought Is Over
When Related broke ground on Ocean Avenue South in 2012, it broke a 20-year drought for major residential development along Santa Monica's iconic Ocean Avenue. Since then, the shovels haven't stopped, making us think it's a good time for our LA Construction & Development Summit, April 24 at the JW Marriott at LA Live.
On the multifamily side, Related California is focused on the San Francisco Bay Area, including Santa Clara, San Jose, and San Fran's CBD. In SoCal, the firm's active in Downtown LA, Hollywood and the Westside, where it's about 30 days away from completing its 1M SF mixed-use Ocean Avenue South project (below), with condo pre-sales already underway. EVP Gino Canori says the firm's focus is urban core—areas where there's job growth, walkability, and access to amenities and transportation.
In Downtown LA, Related's Grand Avenue will see its first phase, a 271-unit luxury high-rise called The Emerson, finish in October.
How about industrial? Panattoni Development partner Mark Payne tells us four submarkets—Port of LA, Mid-Counties, San Gabriel Valley, and Central LA—comprise the best 75% of the LA County market for the company's strategy to develop core industrial product. Panattoni has projects in various stages of development in each of these submarkets, including Mark's newest: LAX Distribution Center in Inglewood. Now in planning, the 140k SF project will be a fully fenced and secured, state-of-the-art distribution building built on spec, located just eight minutes from the LAX airport. (Throw a couple cots in there and it's mixed-use airport hotel/distribution center.)
Mark, who is responsible for Panattoni's LA County infill activity, also is entitling a 133k SF complex in Irwindale consisting of four buildings (including one rendered above—the key is to not upset those ghosts trees), which he won through an industrial developer RFP process with the City. The buildings will range between 25k and 43k SF. (In LA, where there's not much land for mega projects, often it's go smaller or go home.) Mark notes that small users prefer to avoid the risk of doing a build-to-suit, so all four will be built speculatively. Look for the project to break ground at year-end.
November will be an especially busy month for Sonnenblick Development's hospitality activities. Chairman Bob Sonnenblick (at the 7th Hole at Pebble Beach) tells us he's just finishing design and has put financing down for a $75M Hyatt House on the campus of the USC Medical Center; groundbreaking is slated for Nov. 1. Also getting started that month: a $40M Hyatt Place in the new terminal building at Sacramento International Airport. He's got other hotels in the works in Palm Springs and in Pinehurst, NC, where a $150M, 330-room Westin Hotel will boast two golf courses.
With 200 rooms and suites, and surrounded by four hospitals, the USC Hyatt House just east of Downtown will cater to patients and their family members. (As long as your continental breakfast is better than the hospital food, you're on the right track.) In addition, Bob's searching up and down the SoCal coast for waterfront hotel sites; but there isn't much oceanfront left. He's not deterred, though. He's involved on projects on the waterfronts in Seattle and Palm Beach, Fla., and makes time to go up to Pebble Beach once a month to golf and get inspiration on the 17-Mile Drive. We hope you'll join us for our LA Construction & Development Summit, April 24 at the JW Marriott at LA Live.
