Slow Build-Up

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Slow Build-Up
Ben Besley at City Ventures’ condo-townhomes project at the former Ambassador College campus in Pasadena.

A long-stalled plan to add 70 luxury condos and townhouses to the historic Ambassador College campus in Pasadena is finally under way.

Santa Ana developer City Ventures Inc., which acquired the project for $15 million out of foreclosure in 2010, is about to complete the 10-unit first phase and has just broken ground on the 21-unit second phase.

The construction comes as the area’s condo market has taken off. May sales volume in the development’s 91105 ZIP code shot up 50 percent over the year-ago period and sale prices escalated 10 percent to a median of $703,000, according to Seattle brokerage Redfin.

“This market has always been a good place to build new homes,” said Ben Besley, vice president of development at City Ventures. “I’d say we are fortunate today that the market is headed in the direction it’s headed.”

The project, called Ambassador Gardens, consists of two- and three-bedroom units of between 1,880 and 3,725 square feet, with prices starting above $1 million. The median price for the dozen condo sales in the area in May, the most recent month for which data are available, was $703,000, or $409 a square foot.

The condos are coming out of the ground where classrooms and administrative space for Ambassador College, operated by the Worldwide Church of God, once stood. The bulk of the 49-acre site was assembled in the 1960s. It was landscaped with lush greenery and trees, Craftsmen and Japanese-garden elements such as lantern-lit walkways and cascading waterfalls, and fountains, which still exist today.

“The campus has a lot of assets, historic gardens and mature landscaping, making it a nice setting,” said Besley.

City Ventures is restoring and preserving other parts of the historic campus, including two large mansions and a public garden.

Development blocked

Ambassador College, founded to prepare students to work in the church ministry, operated until the 1990s. When its plans to develop more than 2,000 residences on the site were shot down in the late ’90s, the church put the campus up for sale in 1999 and sold off the property in pieces.

In 2004, Maranatha High School and Harvest Rock Church, which acquired the Ambassador Auditorium, bought up the eastern portion of the site. Later, AACP Properties and Ambassador Acquisition Coalition Partners II acquired a 20-acre western portion.

The developers received approval to build 70 residences on the west side of the property in 2007, but their building partner, Standard Pacific Homes, abruptly pulled out. Unable to find a replacement, the development team defaulted on its $44 million loan and the property was foreclosed on and taken over by a New York hedge fund.

City Ventures stepped in to buy the condo site in 2010 and two years later also picked up the northeastern corner of the site from Sunrise Senior Living, which planned to build 248 senior units.

The company, which is building the condo portion of the project according to its original entitlements, only received final design approval from the city last year. That portion of the project will be built in four phases over the next two years.

The initial phase of the project includes two high-end townhomes and eight condos that are scheduled to be completed by the fall. The buildings, which face Del Mar Boulevard, are designed to look similar to the arts and crafts-style homes in the well-known neighborhood.

The second phase, which broke ground in May, includes 21 condos and should be completed next summer.

The third and fourth phases, with 19 and 20 units, respectively, will begin next year and should be completed by the end of 2015.

As part of the project, City Ventures is preserving a number of historic elements and 12 acres of outdoor space, including the former garden of the wealthy widow Margaret Fowler.

It is restoring two mansions from the early part of last century that sit on the campus and might sell them as single-family homes when the project is completed. Prices have not yet been determined.

Besley said that for an infill developer finding ways to merge the new with old isn’t unusual, but the historic nature of this campus is.

“It’s definitely a unique project for us,” Besley said. “It’s not unusual to work on a project with a lot of conditions such as preserving historic elements; this is just a lot more than we usually see.”

City Ventures has adjusted the plans for what had been the senior housing portion of the project, opting to build up to 100 larger market-rated condo units. It is moving through the entitlement process for that project.

Javier Rivera, vice president of capital markets at Jones Lang LaSalle Inc.’s downtown L.A. office who is familiar with the area, said the project should be well received.

“I think it’s a great idea,” he said. “The entire neighborhood is low density for sale housing and the project fits nicely into that part of the neighborhood. The demand for housing right now is unprecedented. Pasadena occupancy is tight.”

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