Most Active Retail Developer

Winner

Vestar Development Co.

Phoenix

Runners Up

Majestic Realty Co.

City of Industry

TrizecHahn Development Corp.

Toronto

Vestar Development Co. specializes in building major retail projects, and it has two whoppers going up in the L.A. area right now. Those were sufficient to qualify the Phoenix-based company as L.A. County’s most active retail developer of 1998.

Its biggest project by far is the 1 million-square-foot Long Beach Towne Center, the largest retail project to break ground last year.

Long Beach Towne Center, which is scheduled for completion in May, sprawls across 102 acres. The open-air mall is being developed on the former site of a naval hospital at the intersection of the San Gabriel River (605) Freeway and Carson Street in Long Beach.

Vestar Project Director Jeff Axtell said that the site’s size and freeway proximity make it an ideal location to “create a presence in an area that has only limited retail facilities within a three- to four-mile radius.”

The center will contain about 70 stores, numerous restaurants and a 26-screen movie multiplex to be operated by Edwards Cinemas. Vestar estimates the value of the project at $110 million.

Tenants began moving into the mall last November and almost 50 percent of the stores are already open for business. Axtell said 99 percent of the stores have been leased.

On 20 acres of the center, L.A. County’s first AutoNation used-car dealership has been opened. Among the other tenants are: Sam’s Club, Ross Dress For Less, Barnes & Noble, Old Navy, Payless Shoes, PetSmart, Linens ‘N Things, Starbucks Coffee, Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, a microbrewery and a sports bar.

Vestar’s other local project is the 264,000-square-foot Glendale Fashion Center, which is slated for completion in the spring of 2000.

Glendale Fashion Center is going up on the southwest corner of California and Glendale boulevards. It will contain a Ralph’s grocery store, Long’s Drugs, Staples, Barnes & Noble, Ross, Petco, Michael’s and Sports Authority.

While the Long Beach Towne Center is by far Vestar’s largest L.A.-area project, it has developed three other large-scale shopping centers locally: the 541,000-square-foot Cerritos Towne Center, 265,000-square-foot Paramount Towne Center, and 100,000-square-foot Redondo Beach Plaza.

Its largest and best-known development is Scottsdale Pavilions, a 1.2 million-square-foot power center in Scottsdale, Ariz.

The company also develops hotels, and is now building Ritz Carlton luxury resorts in Half Moon Bay, Calif.; Tucson, Ariz.; San Antonio, Texas; and Vail, Colo.

Vestar traces its origins to 1977, when Lee Hanley, its current president, founded Estes Development Co., an Arizona-based shopping center construction company and a division of Estes Homes, which developed houses, apartments and hotels.

Five of Estes’ partners bought out the company in 1989, with financing from Ameritech Pension Trust. As a result of the buyout, Estes became Vestar Development and Ameritech became one of Vestar’s principal capital partners.

Three years ago, Vestar established an alliance with Lend Lease, a large pension trust advisory group, to provide capital for various types of development projects.

But the company’s specialty remains shopping centers with between 100,000 and 1 million square feet of space.

Rebecca Kuzins