Lifestyle Magazine for LA's Westside
The Campus at Playa Vista Sells
Globe St.
The Campus at Playa Vista is home to prominent tech companies.
The Campus at Playa Vista, a four-building class-A office complex, has been sold. An SEC filing indicates the purchase price was $218 million by Hines Global REIT, Inc., a real estate investment trust sponsored by Hines real estate and investment management. .
The Campus at Playa Vista is 97% leased on a long-term basis to tenants that include four technology companies: Facebook, Inc.; Belkin International, Inc.; the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technology; and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
The complex was completed in 2009 and is LEED Core and Shell Gold certified. The complex is situated on seven acres in the 1,087-acre Playa Vista master-planned community. The four-story office buildings, located at 12015, 12025, 12035 and 12045 East Waterfront Drive, contain a total of 324,944 square feet.
Each glass and aluminum-clad, wedge-shaped building includes a green roof and patio on the fourth floor. The buildings are connected by 9,000-square-foot private landscaped terraces on the second floor. Beneath the buildings is a two-level garage that contains parking for 944 cars. A nine-acre, Michael Maltzan-designed park is adjacent to the property.
Sherri Schugart, president and CEO of Hines Global REIT, said in a statement that Hines was “attracted to this property due to its strong tenancy, recent construction, excellent access and long-term prospects for this emerging west LA submarket.”
Hines Managing Director Doug Metzler also said in a statement that the lower west L.A. submarket “is one of the most attractive office markets on the West Coast, and we are pleased to expand our LA portfolio with assets of this quality.”
Hines will manage The Campus at Playa Vista on behalf of Hines Global REIT. CBRE's Kevin Shannon, vice chairman and managing director of the western institutional group represented the seller, Tishman Speyer, in the transaction.
Hines Global REIT is a public, non-listed real estate investment trust sponsored by Hines that owns interests in 32 real estate investments located in the United States and internationally.
Playa Vista's remarkable turnaround
LA Observed By Mark Lacter
Formerly home to the Howard Hughes aerospace factory, the land had been nearly given up for dead, especially the commercial component that was abandoned by DreamWorks SKG back in the mid 1990s. But timing and opportunity can work wonders in real estate and today Playa Vista represents a kind of new frontier for the Westside.
As I point out in the May issue of Los Angeles magazine, much of what's happening reflects the growth of L.A.'s hybrid tech sector, a collection of software firms, Web-based designers, special-effects businesses, ad agencies, video game publishers, and entertainment production companies.
That and simple economics: It's still cheaper to lease large amounts of space in Plata Vista than, say, Santa Monica or Venice, which remains the preferred location for many young tech companies wanting to be close to the water.
From my piece:
"This is a spot where we saw a creative world developing," says Liam Collins, head of YouTube Space L.A., as he leads me on a tour of the 41,000-square-foot production facility that Howard Hughes used as an airplane hangar in the 1940s. Last year's decision by YouTube owner Google to lease space in Playa Vista legitimized the location in a way no developer's sales pitch ever could. Google realized as much in negotiating a sweetheart lease with Wayne Ratkovich, whose real estate firm paid $32.4 million in 2010 for the 11 buildings that at one time were owned by Hughes. "It made us look like heroes, no question," says Ratkovich. Open for six months, the YouTube space serves as a TV incubator for operators of online channels who want to profit from their work. They're given access to sophisticated soundstages, screening rooms, and editing bays that are leagues above the bedrooms and garages where much of their content has been produced. After several weeks of training and consultation, the visiting programmers are replaced with other YouTube talent.
"The technology companies want to get closer to creativity, and the creative companies want to get closer to technology," says John Boiler, chief executive of 72andSunny, a rapidly growing advertising agency that's about to move onto the Hughes campus, only steps from YouTube.
Nobody planned it this way, but the merging of technology and media could fit nicely in Playa Vista's semisuburban surroundings as well as in the newly built office complexes directly to the north that are home to Microsoft, Electronic Arts, and other major tech companies.
Even so, this nondescript stretch of Jefferson Boulevard remains something of an outpost--not quite Santa Monica and not quite Silicon Valley. As a result, the vacancy rate hovers around 30 percent, compared with 9 percent closer to the coast, and rents are roughly a dollar per square foot cheaper.
"Look, it's not Venice, but you pay for Venice," says Matthew Brainard, senior managing director of Studley, a commercial real estate services firm. "And in Venice you're not going to get 40,000, 50,000 square feet of contiguous space with parking.
That's the trade-off." David Binswanger is an executive with Lincoln Property Company, one of the developers that purchased land in Playa Vista several years ago. The centerpiece of Lincoln Property's effort is a 225,000-square-foot retail center called the Runway, which will have restaurants, shops, a movie theater, a drug store, and a supermarket--many of the conveniences Playa has been lacking.
Playa Vista's Downtown
(With Whole Foods) Starts Work
LA Curbed
Ceremonial hardhats were worn and lukewarm coffee was served yesterday as ground broke on the massive Runway mixed-use development in the massive Playa Vista planned community (and not even a year late).
Developers Lincoln Property, Phoenix Property, and Paragon Commercial Group recently obtained a $150 million loan that enabled work to begin on the $260 million Runway--the developers are bullish on construction, saying in a statement that all 420 apartments, 35,000 square feet of office space, and 221,000 square feet of retail will be up and running in less than two years, with stores operating in time for the 2014 holiday shopping season.
Speaking of retail, Johnson Fain is doing the design and a Whole Foods has already committed, as well as a movie theater, drugstore, vegetarian restaurant, and bank. "A lantern-shaped tower with a steel mesh exterior and dramatic lighting will house a central lanai lounge that anchors the [retail] center and serves as Runway's central meeting place," according to the developers.
The apartment units will include everything from studios to two-level, two-bedroom units with balconies. No word yet on rents, but we can say with near certainty it won't be cheap.
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Disclaimer
This information has been obtained from sources believed reliable. It is not verified and makes no guarantee, warranty or representation. Any statements, projections, opinions or assumptions used are for example only.
LA Curbed
The Southern California real estate market had its busiest April since 2006, with the number of homes sold up nearly 10 percent from last April, and the average price up 23 percent from a year ago, according to the latest numbers from DataQuick.
In LA County, the median sale price is up 27 percent, to $395,000--that's $15k higher than last month. The company attributes the rise in median prices to rising values, but it's also the specific houses that are selling: the number of foreclosures continues to drop, slowing sales at the bottom of the market, and there was a 50 percent increase in houses that sold for more than $800,000 compared to last year.
The number of flips and houses sold to absentee or cash buyers were all down a bit from March. But while the price recovery seems to continue to gather momentum (though flips and sales to investors remain higher than in 2012), DataQuick does always like to remind us that prices are still well below the 2007 peak--29.3 percent below, to be exact.
LATEST HOMES FOR SALE HERE
Community Center for Phase 2 Playa Vista Construction underway!
Visit Community Center page here
Venice Mixed Use Hotel Project being proposed
The Venice Neighborhood Council Land Use and Planning Commission met on Wednesday evening to discuss at Mixed Use Hotel project at 1033 Abbott Kinney in Venice. We will keep you posted on more details as they develop.
Here's Every LA Neighborhood Ranked by Rental Hotness
Pictured:A Beverly Glen house renting for $6,250
LA Curbed
With Los Angeles's for-sale housing market tight as hell and prices rising, no surprise that the rental market is also looking pretty damn crazy right now. The lovely people at rental site Lovely tell us that "the market is incredibly active and competition fierce with properties staying on the market no longer than 39 days across the entire city at steep asking prices." They looked at the average time rentals spent on the market and average asking prices to find the most competitive neighborhoods to rent in--Beverly Glen is, sort of surprisingly, the maddest, with apartments lasting an average of just eight days on the market (at an average price of $2,660 per month).
Bel Air and Pacific Palisades, not at all surprisingly, averaged the highest rents ($4,324 and $4,499 respectively); rentals in those 'hoods averaged 34 days 26 days on the market respectively. Here's the partial list:
Montebello and Granada Hills are pretty hot.
8 days - Beverly Glen ($2,660)
14 days - Montebello ($1,223)
Granada Hills North ($2,510)
Central Alameda ($1,298)
15 days - Granada Hills South ($1,769)
16 days - Culver-West ($1,616)
17 days - Beverly Hills ($2,837)
Mount Washington ($1,869)
Baldwin Hills ($1,450)
18 days - Glassell Park ($1,718)
19 days - Echo Park ($1,653)
East Los Angeles ($1,287)
Cypress Park ($1,772)
20 days - Silver Lake ($1,834)
Watts ($1,345)
South Central LA ($1,435)
21 days - Melrose ($2,249)
West Hollywood ($2,273)
Hollywood Hills ($2,665)
Venice ($2,877)
Pico - Robertson ($2,064)
Montecito Heights ($1,325)
Monterey Hills ($1,491)
Cheviot Hills ($1,901)
West Hills ($2,444)
Porter Ranch ($2,661)
22 days - Los Feliz ($2,070)
Mid-Wilshire ($1,659)
Northwest San Pedro ($1,704)
Mission Hills ($1,941)
Harbor Gateway North ($1,171)
23 days - Toluca Lake ($2,448)
Boyle Heights ($1,156)
Leimert Park (1,325)
Coastal San Pedro ($1,469)
Eagle Rock ($1,522)
Vermont Harbor ($1,205)
24 days - Mar Vista ($1,968)
Woodland Hills ($2,047)
Central San Pedro ($1,361)
25 days - Atwater Village ($1,517)
Valley Village ($1,753)
Park Mesa Heights ($1,207)
Highland Park ($1,262)
Tujunga (1,355)
26 days - Playa Del Rey ($2,160)
West Los Angeles ($2,205)
Mid-City West ($2,583)
Pacific Palisades ($4,499)
Westmont ($1,135)
Vernon-Main ($1,173)
Reseda ($1,487)
West Adams ($1,533)
Sunland ($1,633)
Warner Center ($1,961)
27 days - Encino ($2,019)
Century City ($2,917)
North Hollywood ($1,427)
Winnetka ($1,626)
Palms ($1,673)
28 days - Marina Del Rey ($2,636)
Studio City ($2,229)
Hollywood ($1,843)
Lincoln Heights ($1,203)
Florence - Graham ($1,280)
Sylmar ($1,421)
Harbor City ($1,428)
Arleta ($1,442)
Full list and article HERE
The Reserve in Playa Vista celebrates their Open House on May 8, 2013
Formerly West LA's local U.S. Post Office facility, The Reserve celebrated their open house on Wednesday which is the new creative campus and new home for Microsoft and TMZ offices
Located at 13031 West Jefferson Boulevard, The Reserve is a 20-acre site entitled for approximately 380,000 square feet of office and industrial space.
TMZ is in the process of moving to the location from Hollywood and Microsoft is taking 25,000-square-feet at the Reserve building just to the north of the Playa Vista complex.
The former CBS executive Nancy Tellem, hired by Microsoft last year, has created a separate entertainment division to produce original and interactive programming for its Xbox Live gaming and streaming system and moving this creative group to Santa Monica and to The Reserve in Playa Vista.
Also debuted at the Open House was a bold Two-Story Einstein Mural by David Flores. This artistic project for The Reserve is part of several murals that Branded Arts was brought in to organize and curate. Using a photograph of Albert Einstein as his source, Flores created a mural that’s actually made up of two layers, giving it a three-dimensional look. It’s definitely one of his best projects up to date and worth a look up close. Four more murals will take place at this location over the next week and a half. While Flores will paint yet another mural at this location, two other artists involved include Chor Boogie and Aaron De La Cruz
For more information on the artist please click HERE
More about The Reserve
The Reserve is Playa Vista’s latest development that includes Worthe Real Estate Group in a joint venture with Shorenstein Properties, the award-winning architecture firm of HLW International and Katherine Spitz Associates, a noted landscape architecture firm.
With the goal of achieving LEED Gold certification, the team has transformed the former site of a U.S. Post Office facility into an inspiring office environment of the highest quality.
Worthe Real Estate Group: Since 1967 M. David Paul Associates, Worthe Real Estate Group and Krismar Construction have been committed to a long term ownership philosophy with its development and acquisition activities in the Los Angeles area. The company has achieved lasting value and created some of the highest quality office environments which support vibrant and active business communities throughout the region today.
Katherine Spitz Associates, Inc. (KSA) is a nationally recognized landscape architecture firm established in 1993.
Shorenstein is one of the country’s oldest and most respected real estate organizations active nationally in the ownership and operation of high-quality office properties.
HLW is an award-winning architecture, engineering, interior design and consulting firm, with a staff of over 240 located in offices in the United States and major cities worldwide. One of the most diverse and versatile firms in the industry, HLW provides business-focused solutions through an integrated group of services.
More about The Reserve, visit their website HERE www.thereservela.com
Welcome to Playa Vista!
Disclaimer: This information is for reference only and not an endorsement by The Reserve or HLW
CONSTRUCTION BEGINS ON ‘RUNWAY,’ A $260 MILLION MIXED-USE DESTINATION IN THE VILLAGE AT PLAYA VISTA
PLAYA VISTA, Calif. (April 15, 2013)—The legendary parcel of land that once gave rise to Howard Hughes’ aerospace empire is undergoing a transformation into ‘Runway,’ a large-scale mixed-use center that will offer unique shopping, dining, entertainment and living space in the heart of the Playa Vista community. The development team, led by Lincoln Property Company, Phoenix Property Company and Paragon Commercial Group, has begun construction on the long-anticipated lifestyle center that will soon connect the Phase I residential community and the Campus at Playa Vista.
Aided by a new $150 million construction loan through a syndicate of banks led by Bank of America, the development team recently broke ground on the project that will include 221,000 square feet of retail, 420 apartments and 35,000 square feet of office space spread across three separate buildings. Construction is expected to last less than two years, with tenants opening their doors before the holiday shopping season in 2014.
“This project has been a long time coming, so we are excited to be moving to the next stage in the development process and to be that much closer to injecting more energy into this already vibrant community,” said David Binswanger, Executive Vice President of Lincoln Property Company. “We want Runway to be at the forefront of everything new in the worlds of fashion, art, design and technology and to be a real center of the community where people come to shop, eat, and to just relax.”
Several of the nation’s top brands have already signed on to be a part of the action at Runway.
Upscale grocer Whole Foods will move into a 35,755 square-foot space adjacent to McConnell Avenue, on the retail center’s ground level. The grocery store will be a first of its kind in Playa Vista, with well-stocked aisles of organic produce, grass-fed beef, a natural juice bar and a wide assortment of supplements for healthy eating.
Down the street, the Cinemark multiplex at Runway will feature nine screens in over 46,000 square feet and the company’s NextGen design concept with RealD 3D capability, self-serve concession stands and an open plaza with a cocktail lounge.
Shoppers can also expect to find a CVS Pharmacy, Veggie Grill and a national bank branch at Runway. In all, these retailers will occupy approximately 100,000 square feet of space.
“We are pleased to see such early interest from a great group of top national retailers. The fact that we are signing best-in-class tenants in every category we are pursuing is a testament to our vision for Runway,” said Mark Harrigian, Principal of Paragon Commercial Group. “When complete, Runway will be brimming with chef-driven restaurants and a unique mix of retailers offering anything from upscale couture to California lifestyle and beach-chic fashions.”
The architectural design will play a large role in the vibrant, yet relaxing atmosphere at Runway. The retail complex, designed by Johnson Fain, will feature wide sidewalks for outdoor dining, soothing water features, communal seating areas, firepits and a direct connection to Playa’ Vista’s Linear Park. A lantern-shaped tower with a steel mesh exterior and dramatic lighting will house a central lanai lounge that anchors the center and serves as Runway’s central meeting place.
For those who want to be close to the action, Runway will offer office space and a variety of residences that sit above the first-floor retail. The apartment homes at Runway will range from studios to two-level, two-bedroom units with large windows, balconies and articulating walls. Residents will also have the benefit of an 8,000 square-foot club house, as well as roof-top terraces and dedicated parking.
New Residential Construction site
In addition to the Runway project, The Village at Playa Vista will contain a total of 2,600 residential units, 200 units of senior/assisted living, 50,000 square feet of office space, 40,000 square feet of community serving space, 11.5 acres of parks, and another 12 acres of open space. All of the 221,000 square feet of retail space in The Village will be contained within Runway.
New Community Centerpointe Construction - Also see Community Center Page HERE
Playa Vista and nearby areas are home to growing technology, internet and entertainment companies, including Facebook, YouTube, Electronic Arts, Sony, Fox Sports and Belkin, as well as leading ad agencies Chiat/Day and Deutsch, socially conscious manufacturers like Tom’s Shoes, and legendary Hercules Studio—the film stage for Avatar and Iron Man 3.
About Lincoln Property Company
Lincoln Property Company, founded in 1965 by its chairman Mack Pogue, is a privately-owned real estate firm involved in real estate investment, development, property management and leasing worldwide. Lincoln has offices in all major markets of the U.S. and throughout Europe. Lincoln’s cumulative development efforts have produced over 100 million square feet of commercial space and over 185,000 multifamily residential units. Lincoln Property Company is one of the largest commercial real estate companies in the world. Access www.lpc.com for more information.
About Phoenix Property Company (PPC)
Phoenix Property Company (PPC) was formed in 1994 to focus on specific multifamily development opportunities. Since its inception, PPC and the affiliated GrandMarc have developed residential and mixed-use communities with a construction cost of over $1 billion. These properties comprise over 6739 units and 240,835 sf of retail space. PPC develops in partnership with outside equity investors, many of which have chosen to invest in more than one project. Significant institutions such as AIG Global Real Estate, Behringer Harvard, Brookfield Real Estate Opportunity Fund and IBV Real Estate have chosen to invest in several PPC developments.
About Paragon Commercial Group
Paragon Commercial Group is led by an institutional team of senior real estate executives focused on retail acquisition and development opportunities on the West Coast. With over 50 years of collective experience and a retail resume in excess of 10 million square feet of neighborhood and community centers, Paragon's deep market knowledge and extensive tenant relationships provide a constant pipeline of retail investment opportunities. Paragon enters into each development with the expectation of long-term ownership and delivers only the highest quality retail product. This commitment to quality extends to each constituency involved in the development process including government agencies, lenders, property owners, tenants and partners.
More on our RUNWAY page HERE
Playa Vista Filling Up with more homes and apartments!
It was already reported that Brookfield Homes, a Canadian developer, bought control of Playa Capital Co. and gaining command of more than 50 acres of land in Playa Vista and the transaction is valued at more than $250 million.
Developers at work at Playa Vista include the Ratkovich Co. and Lincoln Property Co. Ratkovich is turning buildings once occupied by mogul Howard Hughes’ aviation company into creative office space for rent and Lincoln is working on the Runway, a $260-million shopping, anchored by Whole Foods Market and apartment complex intended to be the commercial and social heart of Playa Vista.
Development at Playa Vista has been going on for more than a decade. The 1,000-acre community already has more than 3,200 residences and 2 million square feet of offices.
The land Brookfield Homes is taking over is zoned for an additional 2,000 housing units. The new homebuilders are:
Brookfield Homes, KB Home, TriPointe Homes, along with apartments by The Irvine Company and Lincoln Property Company, with more details to follow when information is official.
We will keep you updated on new information as soon as its available.
One neighborhood officially announced for Phase II--the assisted living neighborhood--Fountainview at Gonda Westside by The Jewish Home.
A luxury retirement community designed for active, independent living. The community has an exclusive affiliation with the Los Angeles Jewish Home and will offer residents priority access to its renowned offering of services.
Fountainview at Gonda Westside will be designed around the urban lifestyle Playa Vista offers, with walking paths and easy access to restaurants, retail and recreational opportunities.
NOW SELLING - www.fountainviewgonda.com
888-856-9774