Fifield Cos. has sold a Wilshire Corridor condo development once touted as the city’s most high-end to a Dubai developer for its $95.4 million asking price.
The Club View development, which is under construction, will include up to 35 ultra high-end condo units priced around $2,000 per square foot. Buyer Emaar Properties, a large Dubai developer, is expected to complete the project in two years. The deal closed Sept. 18.
John Laing Homes Luxury Division, a unit of Emaar, will work on the project. Last year Emaar acquired Newport Beach-based John Laing Homes. Emaar is building the $4 billion Burj Dubai skyscraper, which is under construction and slated to be the tallest building in the world at 160 stories.
“I am very pleased we sold it to someone with their background,” said Steve Fifield, founder and president of his namesake, Chicago-based company. “I know that John Laing Homes is looking at this as a total world-class project. We understand that they are going to make some significant upgrades.”
Emaar paid about $60 million for the land and about $30 million for the construction work that has already been completed and the associated building materials. Fifield said that finishes and features in the units could be upgraded, noting “they think that L.A. really is a world-class city, and we are ready for a triple A plus development.”
Fifield, which co-developed the project with Raleigh Enterprises Inc., took the unusual step earlier this year of putting the incomplete project on the market, along with two other California condo developments. Construction of the 21-story tower at 1200 S. Club View Drive just west of the Los Angeles Country Club began in November; so far the foundations and underground levels have been completed.
At the time the project was announced in 2006 the developer’s former brokerage said the penthouse would be sold for about $18 million, which would have made it the most expensive Los Angeles condominium.
Several other ultra luxury condo projects were later announced that would have topped that price, but now there are concerns that the luxury market may be oversaturated and overpriced given the widespread liquidity problems in the mortgage industry.
Fifield discounted those concerns saying “the prospective buyers we were talking to at Club View were not people who are impacted by what is going on in the credit markets.”