It’s not that unusual for the tenants of an apartment building to live above ground-floor retail or a parking garage, but a new development under construction in Redondo Beach takes that concept to a new level.
Twenty-thousand square feet of retail stores and restaurants will be developed in front of a project being built along Pacific Coast Highway, with a 360-space parking garage to the rear of the property. On top of it will be a gated community of 98 single-family detached homes all built on an enormous concrete platform 14 feet above the ground.
“It’s like building a little city on a deck,” said Avi Brosh, president of Agoura Hills-based Braemar Urban Ventures, which is developing the project in partnership with Shawbeth Inc.
The residential neighborhood will rest on a “post tension concrete slab,” which is extremely strong, said Aaron Jones, economic development manager for Redondo Beach. The concrete is poured over a series of reinforcing bars and then the slab is tuned “like a piano” to achieve the desired strength, he said.
Other issues and features were taken into account in the design, including waterproofing, and odor controls for the restaurants, Jones said. The homes will be clustered around courtyards and accessible by stairs and elevators.
“We feel it will be very successful,” he said. “This is a unique approach.”
The project is being built on a five-acre site at 1800 Pacific Coast Highway that used to be a car dealership. It’s a bit inland from the coast, but within walking distance.
“It just occurred to me if we could create salt-box cottages, that would be more valuable in the long run than townhouses,” Brosh said. “Ultimately, we’re going to be able to bring a broader consumer base, as opposed to the traditional home buyer.”
The homes will have three and four bedrooms, range in size from 1,400 to 1,800 square feet, and range in price from $300,000 to $400,000.
“We feel it will be the best housing alternative in the South Bay,” Brosh said.
The Braemar project isn’t the only development game in town. Plans also are being formulated for the reuse of a power plant near the harbor, while another Redondo Beach waterfront site is being eyed for retail.
AES Corp. is scaling back and modernizing the 52-acre power plant and tearing down at least three of its eight smokestacks. A community meeting was recently held to discuss several concepts. They included live-work space, pedestrian-oriented or mixed-use commercial development, a farmers’ market or hotel.
“They run the gamut,” said Randy Berler, a senior planner for the city. “People are interested in local-oriented uses.”
Lease at high-profile project
Arboretum Courtyard has attracted its second tech-related tenant. Broadband Sports has leased about 27,000 square feet in the newly completed office project at 2120 Colorado Ave. in Santa Monica.
Broadband is taking the second floor and part of the ground floor of the larger of the two Arboretum buildings. The lease is valued between $5 million and $10 million (at the asking lease rate of $3.25 per square foot).
Broadband’s lease follows on the heels of a 21,000-square-foot lease by eCompanies, and takes the project to 37 percent occupancy. Spieker Properties, which owns and manages the property, is in negotiations with several other prospective tenants.
Spieker was represented by Chris Houge and Rick Buckley at CB Richard Ellis and Gail Goldstein in-house. Broadband’s brokers were Tom Cherry and Vince Pellerito at Cushman Realty Corp.
Another Spieker lease
Event411.com leased 22,000 square feet of space in the Marina Business Center at 13160 Mindanao Way, which is also owned by Spieker.
Event411.com took over sublease space that was originally leased by Quarterdeck, followed by GeoCities, but will convert to a direct lease after a year. The space is fully wired and in turnkey condition, said Tony Balbona of Cresa Partners, who represented both sides in the deal.
The online event planner, which recently closed a $14.7 million round of private financing, will be moving from Conjunctive Points in Culver City. Matthew Miller of Cresa also represented Event411.com.
In another high-tech deal, MediaNet subleased 25,000 square feet at the Pacific Corporate Towers in El Segundo, said Cresa’s Chris Riegel, who represented the tenant with Miller.
The year-and-a-half lease is valued at $900,000. The fast-growing company (which connects the entertainment industry with high-speed fiber optics) declined to enter into a longer-term lease because it could be double its current size by the end of the lease term, Riegel said.
Torrance building sold
Laguna Hills-based Muller Co. has purchased the Koll Executive Plaza in Torrance for about $33 million.
Kevin Shannon of Grubb & Ellis represented the buyer, as well as seller John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co., with assistance from Phillip Mattice and Steve Lawson of the Seeley Co.
The sale encompasses 343,000 square feet in 13 mostly three-story office buildings on two sides of Hawthorne Boulevard, adjacent to the Del Amo Fashion Center. Shannon said Muller plans to upgrade and rename the properties Torrance Civic Plaza and Torrance Financial Plaza. He said the buildings are 88 percent leased.
John Hancock has been divesting its real estate holdings, which included about 20 office properties around L.A. County.
News & notes
Bertram, Bertram, Dupuis and Immegart sold a 186,023-square-foot warehouse downtown to Do Won Chang, a garment manufacturing company, for $4.5 million. The property is at 2001 S. Alameda St. David Hess and Dwight Hotchkiss of Cushman & Wakefield represented the seller and Chad Maxner of Maxner Real Estate represented the buyer.
Staff reporter Elizabeth Hayes can be reached at (323) 549-5225, ext. 229, or at [email protected].
