Year Marked Beginnings of New Warner Center Project
LARGEST OFFICE PROJECT
Winner
LNR Warner Center
Lennar Partners
Runners Up
Howard Hughes Center
Arden Realty
The Atrium At Continental Park
Continental Development Corp.
The 350,000-square-foot LNR Warner Center that began construction in January 2000 was the largest office project to break ground in Los Angeles County last year and it is only a fraction of what Irvine-based developer Lennar Partners has planned for the 35-acre Woodland Hills site.
Although the $75 million project consisting of two five-story buildings is being constructed “on spec” (without any anchor tenant commitments), the remainder of what is envisioned to eventually be a $250 million complex will be constructed on demand over the next five to seven years.
When the project is complete, the tract will consist of nine or 10 office buildings with three to five stories each, totaling 1.3 million square feet.
While the scope of the project is substantial, so are the financial resources of Lennar Partners, which is a division of Miami-based Lennar Corp., the nation’s largest homebuilder.
“We are customer and tenant driven,” said Lang Cottrell, Lennar Partners’ vice president of commercial development. “We study the market to understand the types of tenants we will be building for what their needs are. And we build to their demand.”
The buildings are designed to reduce operating costs, such as electricity bills, and come with lower leasing rates than nearby high rise buildings.
David Greenberg
LARGEST INDUSTRIAL PROJECT
Winner
Port Los Angeles
Distribution Center
Overton Moore Properties
Runners Up
Irwindale Business Center
Trammell Crow Co.
Van Nuys Airport
Industrial Center
Trammell Crow Co.
Port-Area Project Brings Award to Overton Moore
Overton Moore Properties had to remove toxic substances in an 87-acre tract at the Port of Los Angeles before it could begin construction of its 1.8 million-square-foot distribution facility in January 2000.
But once the site was clean, construction of the $90 million joint venture with financier Pacific Coast Capital Properties of Los Angeles the largest industrial project to break ground in L.A. County in 2000 became an integral component of the port’s ongoing expansion efforts.
The 547,000-square-foot first phase of the Port Los Angeles Distribution Center is already occupied by Performance Team Freight Systems Inc. a warehousing, shipping and consolidation operation for the garment industry.
The remainder of the project, which is located off the Harbor (110) Freeway, is scheduled to be complete in late October.
Features include an interior ceiling clearance of 30 feet and a state-of-the-art overhead sprinkler system for maximum fire protection.
Although the project might seem gigantic, it is par for the course for Overton Moore, which has developed more than 25 million square feet of commercial and industrial space over the last quarter century.
“Overton Moore has a 25-year history of doing big projects in L.A. and Orange counties,” said Dick Lewis, a spokesman for Overton Moore.
Largest Retail Project
Winner
The Grove at Farmers Market
Caruso Affiliated Holdings
Runners Up
Paseo Colorado
TrizecHahn Development Corp.
Lakewood Center
The Macerich Co
Much of The Grove Leased As Construction Continues
Longtime Angelenos who once spent summer evenings watching the Hollywood Stars minor league baseball team at Third Street and Fairfax Avenue can now witness a Santa Monica developer’s commercial home run rising on the site.
Last October, Caruso Affiliated Holdings broke ground on the largest retail project to get underway in Los Angeles last year. The Grove at Farmers Market is a planned 575,000-square-foot shopping center on 18 acres of leased land just east of the landmark market.
The recent softening of the economy has not dissuaded Caruso from committing $150 million to the project.
“I’m always concerned about the economy,” said Rick Caruso, the company’s chief executive. “(But) we’re long-term players The economy will cycle back. This is a significant piece of real estate that will also be strong in any economic cycle.”
Caruso began securing the land and designing the project four years ago.
He said 80 percent of the project’s available space has already been leased to companies such as Nordstrom, FAO Schwarz, Maggiano’s restraurant, The Gap, Banana Republic, Barnes & Noble and Pacific Theatres, which will operate a 14-screen cineplex on the site.
The open-air facility may also appeal to people who otherwise would go to the enclosed Beverly Center, located only about a mile to the west. There is certainly no shortage of shoppers in the area.
“It’s been a prime site for a long, long time,” said Caruso. “It’s one of the most dense locations in the city and one of the richest, in terms of demographics. Twenty percent of L.A. County lives within 10 miles of the site.”
David Greenberg
Architectural Firms
Winner
Daniel, Mann,
Johnson & Mendenhall
Los Angeles
Runners Up
Gensler
San Francisco
Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum
St. Louis
High-Profile Local Projects Added to DMJM Portfolio
With $42 million in local billings last year, Daniel, Mann, Johnson & Mendenhall was by far the most active architecture firm in Los Angeles County.
DMJM’s L.A. architecture practice is more than 75 people strong, concentrating on build-to-suit headquarters, speculative office buildings, renovations and master planning for both public- and private-sector clients.
The firm’s current high-profile projects in L.A County include the new Rand corporate headquarters in Santa Monica and two new office buildings at Howard Hughes Center (6080 & 6100 Center Drive).
Other L.A. projects include two Emergency Operations Center buildings for the Los Angeles Police Department, project management for the City of Santa Monica and a speculative office building in El Segundo, said Leslie Grant, vice president of marketing for the firm.
Outside of L.A. County, DMJM’s local architecture team is nearing completion on two new phases of office buildings for the 14-acre BMC Software campus in Houston, and it recently completed a fourth phase for Harwood International’s office campus in Dallas.
The L.A team is also currently working on a variety of overseas projects, including a 1 million-square-foot headquarters for the Korea Development Bank in Seoul, a construction program for Kuwait University and a high-speed rail line in Taipei.
Since adding an office in Los Angeles in 1946, DMJM has designed, built or managed thousands of projects on six continents in every environment imaginable from ocean ports to Alaskan villages to the North Africa desert.
By adding electrical and mechanical engineering capabilities in the 1950s, it became the first integrated architecture and engineering firm in the western United States. Soon thereafter, the U.S military became one of the firm’s biggest customers. By the mid-1950s, in fact, nearly three-fourths of the firm’s revenues were derived from work performed for the U.S. Air Force.
Meanwhile, in response to the rapid military buildup and the space race in the mid-1950s, DMJM entered the burgeoning and highly lucrative aerospace industry, building, among other massive projects, the launch pads at Cape Canaveral, including the one used by John Glenn for his first orbital flight.
During the 1960s, DMJM’s L.A. architecture team was awarded the $40 million Hyperion sewage contract, which called for designing one of the largest sewage treatment systems in the world. Hyperion included nine miles of tunnels and two extensive pipelines, stretching five and seven miles, respectively, into the Santa Monica Bay.
More recently, DMJM has worked on another massive L.A. project the Alameda Corridor, which, once complete, will provide a rail link between downtown Los Angeles and the seaports of San Pedro and Long Beach.
Suzanne Evans
Commercial Interior Design
Winner
Gensler
San Francisco
Runners Up
SmithGroup
San Francisco
Hellmuth Obata+Kassabaum Inc.
St. Louis
Gensler Retains No. 1 Spot In L.A.’s Workplace Spaces
Heading into its silver anniversary in the Los Angeles market, Gensler shows no signs of losing its momentum as the region’s premier commercial interior design firm.
Gensler, which is headquartered in San Francisco and opened its Los Angeles office in 1976, racked up $16.3 million in local billings in 2000. Although business last year was down slightly from 1999, Gensler still outpaced its closest rival, SmithGroup, by more than $6 million to finish on top for the fourth year in a row.
“Last year was a great year for a lot of people, and there were a lot of great opportunities, not only with tech firms but we did a lot of work with financial firms and law firms,” said Nila Leiserowitz, vice president of Gensler’s Los Angeles workplace practice.
Among Gensler’s major projects in 2000 was designing the interiors for Pillsbury Winthrop LLP’s move within 725 S. Figueroa St. and work for Deloitte & Touche, Foothill Capital and Credit Suisse First Boston. One project that stood out was Gensler’s conversion of a 50,000-square-foot Culver City warehouse into office space for e-commerce consulting firm Viant.
“That was a really exciting space, and we did a lot of work with Viant before we even put pen to paper,” Leiserowitz said. “The guiding principle of the firm is to design an environment that fits with our clients’ business goals and objectives. We’re heavily focused on understanding why the client is looking at a new environment.”
With a slowing economy, Gensler, which has about 50 people in its workplace practice, is taking a cautious approach in 2001 but expects to stay busy throughout the year, Leiserowitz said.
“It’s a different world out there than it was last year, but we’re still very busy,” she said. “We’re lucky because about 85 percent of our (interior design) work comes from repeat customers. The services we are providing might be different, they might want to redesign their existing space instead of a major move, but they are still calling us.”
In 2000, Gensler was in major hustle mode, working on 137 projects in the Los Angeles region. The firm’s most active interior practices are located in this area, New York, San Francisco, Houston, Washington, D.C. and London.
And the work done in Los Angeles has its own character. Leiserowitz said Los Angeles companies tend to be more concerned with aesthetics than businesses in other areas. In more practical terms, local companies are always looking for ways of creating work environments that enhance the potential for telecommuting.
“We find that is more critical here in an area where long commutes are a big issue,” Leiserowitz said.
With projects from England to Japan, Gensler is one of the most successful architecture firm on the international level as well, with 2,225 people working in 22 offices worldwide.
In 2000, the company was selected as Firm of the Year by the American Institute of Architects, leading AIA president Michael Stanton to sing its praises.
“Gensler pioneered the practice of interior design, and used the diversity of its work and services to drive innovation,” Stanton said. “In design expression, its buildings reflect its clients’ renewed understanding that place matters, that architecture has strategic value.”
Darrell Satzman
Commercial investment broker
Winner
Kevin Shannon
Grubb & Ellis Co.
Runners Up
H. Carl Muhlstein
Cushman Realty Corp.
Dave Doupe
Insignia/ESG
Volume Pushes Shannon of Grubb & Ellis to the Top
None of the commercial property investment deals that Kevin Shannon brokered last year could accurately be described as a “blockbuster.” But the sheer volume of deals he brokered was enough to put him ahead of his peers.
The 21 sales he recorded last year, for a total of $302.3 million, made Shannon, a senior vice president operating out of Grubb & Ellis Co.’s South Bay office in Torrance, the top commercial investment broker in Los Angeles County.
“I was closing an escrow once every two weeks,” he said. “It was my best year and I’ve been at this 18 years.”
Among the bigger deals that Shannon closed in 2000 was the $27 million, three-asset deal he brokered for Comstock, Crosser & Associates. The three properties, with a combined 225,000 square feet of space, were the Del Amo Business Plaza in Torrance, which was sold to pension fund adviser Advent Realty; the Sky Park Medical Professional Building adjacent to Torrance Memorial Hospital, purchased by Ensemble Real Estate Services; and Pier Plaza in Redondo Beach, bought by Rubin Pachulski Dew Properties.
In another multi-party deal, Shannon represented all parties involved in Legacy Partners’ acquisition of the Circle Business Center in Long Beach for about $16.5 million. The 200,000-square-foot complex features three buildings, each of which had been owned by a separate entity. The complex is located on the 4500 block of Pacific Coast Highway, south of the San Diego (405) Freeway.
While he closed several deals last year, “through hard work and good client relations,” one-third came through in December. Shannon’s outstanding 2000 also was enough to earn him Grubb & Ellis’s top broker nationwide.
Practical about his performance, Shannon said he knows the market is slowing and, upon collecting his first place award, was grateful that “God smiled on a lot of my deals.”
Christopher Keough
Biggest Investor
Winner
Tishman Speyer Properties
New York
Runners Up
Irvine Co.
Irvine
Hertz Investment Group
Los Angeles
Acquisition of MGM Plaza Lifts Tishman
Tishman Speyer Properties’ $353 million purchase of MGM Plaza in Santa Monica from MaguirePartners gave the company the distinction of being Los Angeles County’s top commercial property investor of 2000.
The New York-based real estate giant beat out a handful of competing bidders for the MGM Plaza, which at $327.13 per square foot was one of the biggest investment transactions in county history.
The six-building office complex covers the whole city block bounded by Colorado Avenue, Broadway, Cloverfield Boulevard and 26th Street in the crowded beach town that was one of the hottest submarkets for office space last year. Lease rates at MGM Plaza have exceeded $4 per square foot per month.
The plaza was the first luxury office project in the immediate area and spurred development of several more, including the Water Garden, Gateway Courtyard, Gateway Arboretum and the MTV building.
MGM Plaza is named for its main tenant, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. The entertainment company has decided to leave the complex in 2003, however, for fresh digs in Century City. MGM has signed on as the anchor tenant in the as-yet-unbuilt 34-story Constellation Place, taking as much as 700,000 square feet.
In addition to MGM, current tenants include Gensler & Associates, Symantec Corp., Red Bull North America and Protocare. There are 1.3 million square feet of covered parking at the site.
Most Active Office Developer
Winner
Lennar Partners
Irvine
Runners Up
Arden Realty
Los Angeles
Continental Development
El Segundo
Health Net Deal Generates Building Boom for Lennar
Having broken ground on more than 350,000 square feet of office space in the L.A. area during 2000, Lennar Partners was the region’s most active office developer, outpacing Arden Realty.
Lennar has been in the process of building two five-story, 178,000-square-foot buildings at the LNR Warner Center in Woodland Hills, the first of which was started in January 2000. But it wasn’t until Woodland Hills-based Health Net signed up for 300,000 square feet that the second of two buildings was started last November.
Lennar’s Warner Center project is designed to eventually include eight office buildings, several restaurants and a day-care center, but after the overbuilding debacle of the late 1980s and early 1990s, most Southern California developers have been taking the prudent approach, concentrating mostly on build-to-suit projects.
“Whenever you get into a project like the Warner Center, you’re always a little skeptical about the amount of product that you build at any one time,” said Curt Stephenson, a senior vice president at Lennar.
But that was before Health Net called.
“When Health Net executed the lease, that enabled us to more than double our square footage out there,” Stephenson said.
The $100 million, 10-year deal, in which Heath Net leased 288,000 square feet with an option for 112,000 more, was one of the largest office leases in the Los Angeles area last year. The company will relocate 1,700 employees to two buildings in late 2001 and early 2002.
“Health Net has taken eight of the 10 floors available,” said Kevin Read, a vice president at Lennar Partners.
Still, Lennar, like most developers, has plans to continue with caution. “The things we’re looking to do next year are in our minds recession proof,” said Stephenson. “We will either do build-to-suits, or we will be building product for which the vacancy factor is very low in Los Angeles, for instance, industrial space within the city.”
Lennar’s other regional projects include the Aviation Center in Hawthorne and Philadelphia Place, the Pier One and ACCO Distribution Centers in Ontario.
Conor Dougherty
Most Active Industrial Developer
Winner
Trammell Crow Co.
Dallas
Runners Up
Overton Moore Properties
Gardena
Robertson Properties
Pico Rivera
Trammell’s Irwindale Center Again Paces a Banner Year
For the second consecutive year, Dallas-based Trammell Crow Co. is the region’s most active industrial developer. The company, one of the largest diversified commercial real estate services companies in the United States, is developing the 1.2 million-square-foot Irwindale Business Center, 660,000 square feet at the Van Nuys Airport Industrial Center, 550,000 square feet at the Heritage Springs Business Park and 207,000 square feet for BreitBurn Energy Co. in the South Bay.
“It’s been a great year, in that we’ve been developing infill industrial (projects) throughout Southern California,” said Bob Ruth, area president and senior managing director at Trammel Crow.
The company has a diverse industrial portfolio, but by far its largest industrial project remains the Irwindale Business Center.
“That is an absolute monster,” Ruth said. “Phase one is in the process of being completed, phase two was started in December and is well underway. The whole thing will be about 2.5 million square feet and should be finished in 14 to 16 months.”
Actually, Trammell Crow has been on fire for some time now. And it has no intention of slowing down. “We believe that there is still a very strong demand for well-located industrial product,” Ruth said.
And in the immediate future?
“We have seven projects currently in escrow from San Diego to Los Angeles, four alone in Los Angeles,” said Ruth. “Industrial is a core real estate play for institutions, corporate America and private investors.”
High profile tenants that have signed leases at the company’s Irwindale project are Iron Mountain Records Management Inc., Charter Communications, Superior Communications and Brand Emporium & Apparel. Those deals totaled more than 530,000 square feet.
Trammell Crow Southern California Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Trammel Crow Co., is headquartered in the Landmark Century Plaza Towers, in Los Angeles. The company has 42 offices throughout the Southern California region, managing assets covering all commercial product types including high-rise office, suburban office, warehouse, retail, service center, developed and undeveloped land and corporate facilities.
MOST ACTIVE Retail developer
Winner
Caruso Affiliated Holdings
Santa Monica
Runners Up
TrizecHahn Development
Toronto
The Macerich Co.
Santa Monica
Caruso Celebrates Milestone With Grove Groundbreaking
Having developed more than 3.5 million square feet of retail and mixed-use space throughout the country, Rick Caruso, founder and president of Caruso Affiliated Holdings, is no stranger to success.
But last year was special.
“Last year,” he said, “was probably the most exciting year in the company’s history.”
What made it so special was the groundbreaking of the Grove, a 640,000-square-foot, open-air shopping facility currently under construction adjacent to the landmark Farmers Market at Third Street and Fairfax Avenue. The Grove is set to open in March 2002.
“We’ve been working on this for three and a half years,” he said. ” (But it was last year that) we started construction and hit a milestone of being 80 percent pre-leased.”
These facts alone could put a smile on the face of just about any developer, but adding to the feats is the high caliber of the tenants that have signed on at the Grove. To date, the center has announced such notables as Nordstrom, Barnes & Noble and a 14-screen Pacific Theatres movie complex. Also, legendary toy retailer FAO Schwarz recently committed to open a flagship L.A. store at the Grove.
As solid a year as 2000 was the Santa Monica-based real estate investment and development firm, 2001 may turn out to be even better. Besides continuing construction on the Grove, the company’s largest project to date, Caruso said his company recently started the design process on a town center for Playa Vista. “The entitlement process is started and we have completed our initial studies and design.”
In the coming years the company’s portfolio may become bigger still. Glendale City Council recently cast a unanimous vote giving Caruso exclusive development rights for a mixed-use project on 12 acres at Central Avenue and Brand Boulevard.
The selection process ultimately winnowed down the field of competitors to two, Caruso’s firm and J.H. Snyder Co. Adding a touch of irony to last week’s awards ceremony at the Peninsula hotel in Beverly Hills, Jerry Snyder, principal of J.H. Snyder Co., was the presenter of Caruso’s award for being the most active developer last year.
“It was bad enough losing the Glendale project to this guy,” Snyder joked. “Now I’ve got to give him an award.”
In accepting the award, Caruso responded, “Glendale would have gotten a top-quality project if it had chosen Jerry, but I’m still glad I beat him. Anyway, I need it more than him.”
Caruso’s firm, which owns a portfolio of more than 3.5 million feet of real estate throughout the United States, has specialized in creating lavishly appointed open-air community and regional centers.
The Grove alone will boast its own internal street, a large park that will serve as the center’s focal point, not to mention an internal trolley system which will connect the development with the historic Farmers Market located adjacent to the new retail center.
Conor Dougherty
OFFICE TENANT BROKER
Winner
Steven E. Marcussen
Cushman Realty Corp.
Runners Up
Jeff Pion
CB Richard Ellis Inc.
Robert Chavez
The Staubach Co.
Huge Fox Plaza Transaction Lifts Marcussen to the Top
Steven E. Marcussen of Cushman Realty Corp. had a huge year representing office tenants in lease deals, but most of the performance that qualified him as the No. 1-producing office tenant broker in Los Angeles last year came from a single transaction.
Marcussen reported brokering $285.3 million in lease transactions in 2000, with $275 million of that coming when Fox Entertainment Group renewed its lease for 377,000 square feet at Fox Plaza in Century City.
While the January 2000 deal made his year, and at the time was the biggest lease in Southern California, Marcussen said it was for more reasons than the commission.
“It came during the boom of the dot-coms and the rents on the Westside were escalating and the negotiation was between two billionaires,” Marcussen said, referring to Fox controlling shareholder Rupert Murdoch and Fox Plaza owner Marvin Davis. (Davis has since sold the building to yet another billionaire, Donald Bren of the Irvine Co.)
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s reported $500 million lease for more than 700,000 square feet at the yet-unbuilt Constellation Place in Century City, executed a few months later, is actually bigger than the Fox lease.
Marcussen also represented Herbalife International in two deals totaling 30,000 square feet and he handled Alltel Corp.’s efforts to sublease 34,000 square feet to Liberty Livewire Corp. when Alltel fled its space in Burbank for Little Rock, Ark.
He brokered another lease for Fox Entertainment Group, securing 36,000 square feet on Ocean Boulevard in Santa Monica to house one of its divisions. That deal added $4.6 million to Marcussen’s total. He also helped TelePacific Communications find offices in downtown Los Angeles.
Even with the big year that Marcussen had in 2000, he’s not concerned about a downturn in 2001. He represents international companies and never was too heavily involved with representing flash-in-the-pan dot-com companies.
“I do think I’ll be just as busy (this year),” he said. “Luckily, I still represent some Old Economy tenants, and they’ll be taking some pretty large spaces.”
Christopher Keough
Office Landlord Broker
Winner
JOHN AYOOB
CB Richard Ellis
Runners Up
GRAFTON TANQUERAY
CB Richard Ellis
JOHN OLLEN
Insignia/ESG
Hughes Center Deal Propels Ayoob of CB Richard Ellis
No it’s not a rerun. Not only did John Ayoob of CB Richard Ellis Inc. repeat as Los Angeles County’s top landlord broker after winning the honor last year, Grafton Tanqueray of CB Richard Ellis and John Ollen of Insignia/ESG came in second and third, also repeating their positions of the previous year.
Ayoob, senior vice president with CB Richard Ellis in Torrance, led the competitive office landlord broker field with $452.7 million in leases, finishing ahead of his partner Tanqueray to capture the top spot.
“We closed a lot of deals at 6060 and 6080 Center Drive last year,” said Ayoob. “Now we have moved on to leasing space at 6100 Center Drive at the Howard Hughes Center.”
Ayoob’s deals last year included brokering leases on 73,785 square feet of office space at the Howard Hughes Center to Havas Interactive, a division of Vivendi Corp.
Also among his many projects was the renovated 1.5 million-square-foot Pacific Corporate Towers in El Segundo. The renovation resulted in the leasing of more than 750,000 square feet of space to both new tenants and renewals, taking the project from 70 percent to 92 percent occupied in less than 18 months.
A native of the San Fernando Valley, Ayoob got his MBA in real estate and finance from USC and joined CB Richard Ellis directly out of school in 1980. He soon became an office specialist focusing on the South Bay market.
Ayoob spent his first year in the real estate business in CB’s Wheel Program, in which agents are rotated between offices in order to get a feel for each region of the market.
He achieved overall top producer awards in 1996 and 1999, and has been a member of the CB Richard Ellis Colbert Coldwell Circle (meaning he was in the top 2 percent of the company’s sales force) three times in that period.
Chris Sieroty
Retail broker
Winner
Richard Rizika
CB Richard Ellis
Runners Up
William Bauman
Colliers Seeley International
Mark Lucescu
Marcus Millichap Real Estate Investment
Theater, Supermarket Deals Drive Rizika’s Banner Year
Mixed use has proven to be anything but a mixed blessing for Richard Rizika.
As Los Angeles County’s top retail broker in 2000, he credits his primary success to several mixed-use projects in Long Beach.
“There are fewer and fewer parcels of land available for development,” Rizika said. “That means more intense reuse of properties with housing and retail throughout. It’s more challenging when you’re dealing with mixed-use projects.”
Rizika, senior vice president with CB Richard Ellis Inc., brokered $129.6 million in deals in 2000 to take the top spot. William Bauman, last year’s top retail broker with $70.9 million, wrote $126.4 million in leases to come in a close second.
Rizika’s deals last year included a $26 million lease for a 171,000-square-foot space at the United Artists Center on Pacific Coast Highway and Second Street. And he brokered a $25 million deal that brought a mixed-use development to an AMC Theater project, also located in Long Beach.
“Primarily, my focus has been on projects in southern L.A. County; now we are expanding throughout the county,” he said.
Rizika joined CB Richard Ellis in 1987 and spent two years in his native New Jersey before joining the company’s Torrance office. “My background was in hotel and restaurant management, and I transferred it to the real estate business,” he said.
Another major deal was the acquisition of four properties thoughtout Los Angeles County for Ralphs Supermarkets. The sites included Downey, Signal Hill, Long Beach and Torrance.
“On average each Ralphs store is 58,000 square feet,” said Rizika. “What we do is help them find the location and if necessary help negotiate leases or land deals and even the sale of properties.”
Rizika said the supermarket chain was always very quick to respond to opportunites that CB Richard Ellis had found for them.
IndustrIal Broker
Winner
Jeff Morgan
CB Richard Ellis
Runners Up
Bennet Robinson
CB Richard Ellis
Scott Heaton
Colliers Seeley International
Calls, Contacts, Client Visits All Push Morgan’s Business
The top producing industrial real estate broker in Los Angeles County for 2000 credits his success to his ability to understand what clients are looking for when they go looking to purchase or lease properties.
“My approach is to try to determine what each part of the company needs with a particular property,” said Jeff Morgan, senior vice president at CB Richard Ellis Inc. in Torrance. “If you take the time to listen to what a client wants and needs and then make recommendations, it’s a natural follow through.”
Morgan wrote $203.9 million in business during 2000 to capture the top spot.
His deals last year included the $29 million sale of two properties, with one in Torrance and the other in Hawthorne, to Seattle-based Sabey Corp. The properties together contain more than 400,000 square feet.
He also brokered the 15-year lease of a 129,535-square-foot building in Torrance for $15 million, and the $29 million, 15-year lease of the former Ascot Park Raceway in Los Angeles, which is being renovated for outside storage.
A native of San Pedro, Morgan received a degree in marketing at California State University, Northridge, and joined CB Richard Ellis about six months after graduation in 1978. He was a member of the board of directors when the company went public in 1995.
Morgan has also been a member of the CB Richard Ellis Colbert Coldwell Circle placing him in the top 2 percent of the company’s sales force, in terms of annual production six times during his 23 years with the company.
During his career as an industrial specialist in the South Bay area of Los Angeles County, he has handled over $700 million dollars in lease and sale transactions in more than 28 million square feet of industrial space.
Morgan has also appeared in the Top Ten Sales Producers every year since 1984 and earned the Top Sales Producer award four times.
To continue his success in a slowing economy, Morgan said he and his staff will have to retun to the very fundamentals of being a broker.
Those fundamentals are cold calling, client contact, marketing and a lot of in person visits, he said.
“With no Wall Street money, dot-coms and e-retailers have returned their leased space to more traditional businesses,” said Morgan.
Chris Sieroty
BEST-SELLING RESIDENTIAL PROJECT
Winner
Granite Heights
Granite Homes
Runners Up
Pacific Summit at
Stevenson Ranch
Centex Homes
Sundance
Western Pacific Housing
Palmdale’s Granite Heights Development Sells Quickly
Granite Heights, built in Palmdale by Granite Homes, sold 88 of its 170 homes last year, making it the fastest-selling residential development in Los Angeles County.
By the beginning of this year, the entire development had been sold, said Daniel Kassel, co-president of the Irvine-based developer.
The housing project, first launched when land was purchased in 1997, featured four models that ranged in price from $127,990 to $178,990 and ranging in size from 1,327 to 2,628 square feet.
“I think our models sold quickly because it was the right product for the price and for the market,” Kassel said. “We perceived a need in the market for a three-car-garage home that had up to six bedrooms. We also had a full bedroom and bath downstairs, so that you could live multi-generationally.”
Other features the developer included are center-ceiling lights in the bedrooms, at no extra charge. “That may seem like a minor point, but when you’ve put all that money down and paid for closing costs, you don’t have a lot of money left over, especially to buy extras like ceiling lights, which other developers often don’t include.”
Granite Homes also added higher-quality, American-made hardware in the kitchen and bathrooms, where the faucets have lifetime warranties.
“We are not the cheapest game in town. We found that people aren’t totally bottom-line oriented,” Kassel said. “They want a good price but some niceties.”
So Granite Homes included dual-sink basins in the bathrooms, oval-shaped tubs, a private water closet and ceilings that are nine feet high rather than eight feet to bring more light into the rooms.
“We also realized that in the Antelope Valley you have a wide temperature range. In the summer it can be over 100 degrees and in the winter it can snow. So we went above the minimum code and energy advantage to provide a more energy-efficient home, which costs us more up front, but saves the homeowner over time with lower electric and gas bills. We sold that as a feature,” Kassel said.
The developer also used vinyl-frame windows rather than aluminum-frame windows to keep more of the heat and cold outside.
Knowing that its customers would not have a lot of disposable income, Granite Homes provided special financing packages allowing buyers to purchase a home with essentially nothing as little as $50 to $100 down.
“Here’s the problem. You have people working really hard and all this money flying out the door to pay for food and clothing. They may not have a lot of money for the down payment, but they have enough income to support the loan,” Kassel said.
The company also set up a Homebuyers Club. To join, you had to pay a $5 membership fee. Members were given counseling on how to improve their credit rating in order to qualify for a loan.
Granite Homes, which was founded in 1993 by Kassel and his partner B.J. Delzer, is building several housing projects in San Diego and Riverside counties. It expects to close escrow on 225 home sales this year.
Deborah Belgum
LARGEST RESIDENTIAL PROJECT
Winner
The Oaks at Calabasas
New Millennium Homes
Runners Up
Canyon View Estates
American Diversified
Regatta
Crescent Heights of America
New Phase of Long-Stalled Oaks Project Moves Forward
After nearly 10 years of legal wrangling and bankruptcy proceedings, construction on the Oaks of Calabasas finally began moving forward last year on the 660 acre master-planned, guard-gated community in Calabasas.
Currently 23 homes are fully built and occupied and construction is scheduled to begin this spring on a new phase of sites,” said Louis Malone, President and Chief Operating Officer of New Millennium Homes.
Malone also said that when construction on the entire community is complete, it will include 550 residential sites which will be built by four or five merchant builders. Taylor Woodrow will be the second builder at the Oaks of Calabasas, with a few other prominent builders currently pending.
The Manors is the name of the community of luxury homes that New Millennium will be building. Those homes will have price tags starting at $1.2 million on lots averaging one-half acre size and most will have spectacular views of the Santa Monica mountains, according to Jon Schneider of Barracuda Marketing, New Millennium’s marketing firm.
“The homes range from 4,500-5,800 square feet and are built in several architectural styles, including French Country, Spanish Colonial, Italianate as well as more traditional designs,” Schneider said.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors originally approved the project in 1991, with 650 acres to be dedicated as open space, according to Malone. The original owner, Village Properties, floated a bond offering and couldn’t make the repayments when a housing recession hit, so it sold half of the property to New Millennium Homes.
Village Properties then declared bankruptcy and a series of lawsuits ensued between Village Properties and the bondholders one of which was New Millennium Homes. When the dust finally settled in the summer of 1999, New Millennium took ownership of the entire site.
Malone and other New Millenium officials are pleased that development is finally moving forward. “It’s had a long and complicated history,” Malone said, but if all goes as planned, the “entire community should be complete within five or six years.”
2. Canyon View Estates, American Diversified
The second largest residential development by units planned in Los Angeles County is Canyon View Estates, a 100 acre privately owned and operated manufactured housing community.
Built by Santa Clarita-based American Diversified, the leasehold estate community of 460 units is nestled at the base of the foothills in the Santa Clarita valley.
So far, 360 units have been sold.
3. Regatta, Crescent Heights of America:
Built by Crescent Heights of America, one of the nation’s premier condominium developers, the Regatta in Marina del Rey is L.A County’s third largest residential development.
With 424 units and standing 20 stories tall, the aqua-colored Regatta is L.A’s only new construction high-rise seaside condominium residences. Most of the luxury units feature ocean, city and mountain views, private terraces and floor-to-ceiling windows.
Among the other amenities at the $150 million project are a 24 hour concierge service, business and conference centers, a state-of-the-art fitness center and a laundry and dry cleaning valet.
So far, 154 of the luxury seaside residences have been sold.
Multi-Family Investment Broker
Winner
Sean Deasy
CB Richard Ellis Inc.
Runners Up
Laurie Lustig Bower
CB Richard Ellis Inc.
Ronald Harris
Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment
Demand for Housing Brings Boom for Apartment Deals
Last year was a good time to be brokering investment deals for multi-family residential buildings. Just ask Sean Deasy, senior vice president at CB Richard Ellis Inc.
Deasy, who operates out of the company’s Ontario office, was the top producing L.A.-area broker in the multi-family residential category in 2000, reporting nearly $100 million in transactions, the majority of which came in two large divestitures. The big-buck tally was among Deasy’s best ever.
“I would say it’s right there near the top. A lot of it has to do with market timing because everybody wants to be in Southern California,” Deasy said. “Multi-family clearly was the product of choice last year because of the tremendous imbalance between supply and demand.”
Supply and demand was only part of the equation for Deasy, who got a boost from Pacific Gulf Properties of Irvine, which decided to focus on its senior housing projects and get out of its other residential holdings. Deasy represented the real estate investment trust on six deals last year, helping Pacific Gulf sell more than 500 units for $50 million.
Among the deals that Deasy worked on for Pacific Gulf was the $24 million sale of three apartment complexes in San Dimas to CT Realty Corp.
Deasy said he expects the current year to be at least as fruitful.
“The multi-family market in general will be as good (as it was in 2000), and we’re off to a pretty good start,” he said.
Deasy also brokered the sale of City Heights apartments in Koreatown for an affiliate of Oakwood Worldwide in West Los Angeles. That 687-unit building went for $45 million to Essex Property Trust, a Palo Alto-based real estate investment trust.
Another big deal for Deasy in 2000 was the $17.5 million sale of the 237-unit Pacific Pointe Apartments building in Long Beach. In that deal, Fowler Flanagan Partners sold to Lyon Capital Ventures.
Deasy said he only works for property sellers and only on an exclusive basis.
“I won’t work on something that’s not committed to me,” he said. “I’m just not good at it.
Of course, working strictly as an exclusive representative can limit the business available to Deasy in a given year. The last couple of years, though, he’s managed to handle some large portfolios.
“I’m just lucky my company gives me the support I need to execute that kind of business,” he said.
Residential Broker, Number of Deals
Winner
Leo Nordine
Leo Nordine Realtors
Runners Up
Neil Weichel
RE/MAX of Valencia
Dale Rehfeld
Baldwin Real Estate Services
Nordine Repeats Performance as Home Sales Leader
For the second year in a row, Leo Nordine brokered the most residential real estate deals in the Los Angeles area, selling 304 homes, just shy of his 1999 record of 308.
His top-ranking status means the 38-year-old broker and die-hard surfer (who lives in a one-bedroom apartment overlooking the beach) hasn’t taken a vacation in 10 years.
“On one hand, I am really sharp and focused on my business but relaxed at the same time,” said the strict vegetarian, who tries to get in a few hours of surfing every week. “I eat like a rabbit, and I meditate.”
While Nordine sold about $62 million worth of homes last year, he still doesn’t live in his own home. He and his wife, Molly, who works with him handling all the escrow details, have been renting their Redondo Beach apartment for several years now. It is conveniently located above Nordine’s offices, where he employs six full-time workers. The apartment also just happens to overlook his favorite surfing spot.
Nordine’s top status has changed drastically from 1990, when he started his own brokerage company. His first wife had just left him, the real estate market had tanked, and Nordine didn’t sell a single home his first month.
“Everything that could go wrong went wrong,” said the West Torrance High School graduate who never went on to college. “It was the weirdest time. … I sort of paid my dues.”
While the Nordines don’t live in their own home, they are busy buying up charming beach bungalows and renting them out to save the structures from being razed by developers. One day, they hope to build their own home near the beach. Nordine wants to construct a contemporary two-bedroom home that has a large enough basement to warehouse the 100 surfboards he has collected over the years.
Residential Broker, Dollar Volume
Winner
Valerie Fitzgerald
Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage
Runners Up
Jeffrey Hyland
Hilton & Hyland
Raju Chhabria
Shorewood Realtors Inc.
Fitzgerald Tops Area in Overall Value of Deals
Valerie Fitzgerald ended up in the real estate business pretty much by happenstance. For years she had been an Eileen Ford model for major accounts such as Coppertone suntan lotion. She modeled in New York, Paris and Milan.
By her early 30s, she had appeared in some 200 television commercials.
But modeling can’t pay the bills forever. So Fitzgerald, a single mother with a 3-month-old daughter, rented out her New York apartment and took a job with Revlon in Los Angeles. Soon afterward, a management change eliminated her division and she was stuck without a job.
“A friend of mine said, ‘You’re going to sell real estate,’ and that was 13 years ago,” said the 47-year-old real estate broker, who used to bring her toddler to work at her first job with Stan Herman & Associates. “I didn’t know contracts. I didn’t even know my way around.”
Now Fitzgerald has six assistants and sold $120.5 million of real estate last year. Her clients have included EarthLink co-founder Kevin O’Donnell, who last year sold his Malibu home for close to $8.5 million; Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen and the late actor Walter Matthau.
Last year, the most expensive home Fitzgerald sold went for $22 million, and that one followed a home sale for $14.75 million.
“I never thought I would be this successful,” said Fitzgerald, who has worked hard at balancing her career with being a single mother. She leaves the office every evening at 6:30 to have dinner with her teen-age daughter, Vanessa.
Deborah Belgum
