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  #1081  
Old Posted Aug 23, 2006, 6:03 PM
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This article has some minor added info...

$700 Million Mixed-Use Project Planned Near LA Staples Center
August 22, 2006
By Tonie Auer, Southwest Correspondent

Acquiring four acres of land in the redeveloping region of Downtown Los Angeles near the STAPLES Center and L.A. Live projects, The Moinian Group anticipate a $700 million mixed-use development (pictured) to connect residential and retail with the sports and central district of Downtown.



The Moinian Group acquired the parcel valued at $80 million in early August from AEG. The land was back on the market after a voided contract.

"Our ability to perform and finish the due diligence in this time frame was key to The Moinian Group ending up with this piece of land," Oskar Brecher, director of development for The Moinian Group told CPN.

The Moinian Group will add two million square feet of residential and retail in two high-rise towers at the corner of 11th and Figueroa Streets and across the street from the STAPLES Center and the L.A. Live project, which is being developed by AEG.

"This will be the residential and retail core of the L.A. sports and central district. Each property has a different function and this will make up the biggest residential component and the main retail component," he said. "We have a great deal of faith and interest in Downtown Los Angeles and believe it will take off and see this as a great opportunity to be a part of that."

The Moinian Group has proposed a mix of residential formats including lofts, condominiums, townhouses and luxury penthouse units within two high-rise towers of 45 and 33 stories. Additionally, the plan, designed by international architecture firm, RTKL, calls for an array of retail amenities and services including lifestyle shops, a gourmet food store, luxury retail, new restaurant concepts, a health and fitness club as well as other hospitality/entertainment endeavors.

The master site-plan may include a boutique hotel to complete the nearly 2 million-square-foot development. Total cost of the project is estimated at more than $700 million, including site acquisition. Construction will start in 2007 and will take about three years to complete, he sais.
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  #1082  
Old Posted Aug 23, 2006, 6:15 PM
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Was RTKL responsible for the Fig Central design as well? I know they did the LA Live and Hanover designs.
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  #1083  
Old Posted Aug 23, 2006, 6:16 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by colemonkee
the author was being positive on downtown development, acknowledging that their is a cooling, but rebutting claims of overbuilding.

It was the "cooling" part that made me sit up & wonder, because no one can be certain how far that trend will go. IOW, will the hood start showing signs of what's going on in SD, or will it not be as serious here because there's been less new construction in DTLA to begin with? And in order for the hood to not become overbuilt like in SD (or Miami), does that mean a lot of projs now on the drawing boards will have to be delayed for several yrs or even cancelled?
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  #1084  
Old Posted Aug 23, 2006, 11:16 PM
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VERO 1234 Wilshire

starts at mid 300K pre-sales begin in October 2006

www.verodowntown.com

just received an e-mail from Astaniliving.com

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  #1085  
Old Posted Aug 23, 2006, 11:41 PM
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1050 wilshire (use to be wilshire court) now it's called glo. Got an email for them

the need to do something about their website name
http://www.globabyglo.com/




Hello Dan,
So cool that you checked us out. You could be one of the fortunate few to call Glo 1050 Wilshire your home. We are still out there hammering and expect to have your place ready soon, you know great things take time.

Glo 1050 Wilshire is a downtown retreat like no other. While living here you will be able to hang out in the Surf and Sand Club Room, which is fully equipped with a billiard table, a game table, wireless internet, breakfast bar and lounge seating that opens to a pool and jacuzzi. The Fitness Facility includes state of the art cardio equipment, free weights and a mezzanine exercise area. The Screening Room features a 15 foot screen, Surround Sound and intimate seating. And the 5th Floor Lounge allows you to entertain your guests inside at the bar or outside, seated at the circle of fire.

Glo 1050 Wilshire can accommodate your apartment living needs with Studio, 1,2 or 3 bedroom floorplans, ranging from 600-1400 sq feet. All units include granite bar-tops, ebony stained maple cabinetry, and Whirlpool™ appliances, including full-sized washers and dryers. You may opt for a Premier unit, with stained concrete flooring or a Penthouse level suite with bamboo flooring and stainless steel appliances.

Your name has been added to our interest list so you will hear from us early Fall 2006 as floorplans and pricing information become available.

It’s a new way to live.
It’s a smart way to live.
It’s a great way to live.

It’s glo.
The new light in downtown living!
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  #1086  
Old Posted Aug 24, 2006, 5:23 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bobcat
Was RTKL responsible for the Fig Central design as well? I know they did the LA Live and Hanover designs.
They also designed Market Lofts (Ralph's).
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  #1087  
Old Posted Aug 24, 2006, 5:58 AM
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This blogger gives a first hand account of her tour of the new Library Court condo proj on the south side of 6th St between Hope & Olive Sts.
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  #1088  
Old Posted Sep 6, 2006, 1:11 AM
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I saw this in the newspaper on Sunday. Tracking info like this is no less important than keeping a running total of all the new proposals for condo or apt bldgs in the hood. That's because the speed in which those projs move forward, or whether they'll even go beyond the proposal stage to begin with, depends alot on how confident devlprs are in consumer demand, & how many $$ they can get for each unit they build.

Quote:
In downtown Los Angeles, recently one of the hottest Southland condo markets, there is a glut of units, said Stephen May, a veteran broker with Downtown Residential Real Estate. The broker's sales count through June of this year is half that of the same period last year, he said. Today, seven condo units are listed for every one that sells. Last year, the ratio was 1 to 1.

May recently represented a seller who had bought a condo last November for $385,000. She listed it in early July for $485,000, with a warning from May that she should be prepared to reduce the price. She quickly did, to $450,000, then $419,000, the price of five others for sale in the building. May urged her to drop the price to $395,000, which would set her apart from the others, but she refused and the sales contract expired. The condo no longer is listed.

"Her property isn't worth what she wanted it to be," May said. "It's hard to accept that prices are going down."
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  #1089  
Old Posted Sep 6, 2006, 1:35 AM
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I never would have guessed...real estate speculation is...is...risky?
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  #1090  
Old Posted Sep 6, 2006, 4:04 AM
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yes and that lady quoted was going for the jackpot. nice try. also, many more projects have come online this year compared to last.
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  #1091  
Old Posted Sep 6, 2006, 4:31 AM
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The woman buys a condo last November, then expects a 30% increase in value in nine months? She's smoking crack.

People like this deserve to get screwed. These people do nothing but make housing less affordable for everyone else. They contribute nothing to the neighborhood.

The smart investor would hold on to her property for several years. Downtown L.A. will be a very hot market once all the current projects get completed.
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  #1092  
Old Posted Sep 6, 2006, 4:56 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LongBeachUrbanist
The woman buys a condo last November, then expects a 30% increase in value in nine months? She's smoking crack.
we have people up here in Portland who come into the condo showroom and expect to buy an unbuilt condo and flip it 3 days later for 10-20% more. no joke. fortunately the condo salesmen try to avoid selling condos to these people.



Quote:
Originally Posted by yakumoto
I hate people who call themselves "new urbanists." Why do we need a new urbanism? The old one worked just fine.
new urbanism is a reintroduction of old urbanism that is updated for todays needs (i.e. the automobile). old urbanism was written off as dead in the mid-century but you cant just go back to building cities of the past and assume the auto or the last 60 years never happened. check out the Charter of the New Urbanism, you'll probably agree with 90+% of it.
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  #1093  
Old Posted Sep 6, 2006, 7:17 AM
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Standard Pacific Abandons Downtown L.A. Condo Deal

The 272 units, which failed to attract enough buyers, will be leased as apartments instead.

By Annette Haddad, Times Staff Writer
September 6, 2006

Suburban home builder Standard Pacific Corp. has opted out of an agreement to buy a major Los Angeles condominium project, another sign that downtown's once-sizzling condo market might be losing steam. The condo development, adjacent to Union Station, was behind schedule and was having trouble attracting buyers for the units priced in the $600,000 range. Instead of being sold as condos, the 272 units will be leased as apartments beginning today by the project's owner, Lincoln Property Co. of Dallas.

"The delays of getting buyers into the building, combined with the market softening, all conspired to cause us to reach the conclusion we did," Steven Ross, director of planning for Standard Pacific's Los Angeles division, said Tuesday.

Although prices in the downtown market — one of the last in the Southland to heat up and stay hot — continue to rise year over year, sales have slowed considerably while the supply of units continues to grow, creating what some analysts say is a condo glut. From January to June, sales of existing downtown condo and loft units plunged 25% compared with the year before. But developers have added 6,900 condo units and lofts in the last five years, with an additional 5,600 slated to be built in the next two years.

Condo developers downtown and elsewhere are starting to reevaluate their projects, particularly those who entered into deals at the height of the housing boom, as prices were driven higher with the help of short-term investors. Some projects slated to begin sales this year have been pushed back to 2007 or 2008, analysts say.

"Maybe downtown has gotten a little ahead of itself," said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. "Downtown is a young market, and we don't have that much history as to how it will perform in a true cycle."

Developers "have to take a hard look at the crucial combination of what they paid, what it will cost to build and deliver their units and what they will actually get," said Peter Dennehy, senior vice president of the Sullivan Group of Real Estate Advisors.

Some developers with projects well underway are devising strategies to adjust to the slowing downtown housing market. For instance, Kor Group, which is close to finishing its Eastern Columbia condos at 8th Street and South Broadway, presold nearly all of its 96 units. But the company purposely held off the market 10 of its highest-priced units: penthouses starting at more than $1 million each. "We made the decision to hold back and we don't regret it," Kor Group Senior Vice President Kate Bartolo said. "We now have a list of 40 people who are on hold and waiting."

In the meantime, the developer has upgraded the penthouses to better justify its asking prices. "What we're seeing is the quick-flip artists falling out and now we have a different type of buyer" who is more deliberative about making a purchase, Bartolo said.

Irvine-based Standard Pacific's decision to back out of the condo project stems largely from its position as a publicly traded builder with stockholders to please. Nationwide, building companies are recognizing that certain deals may no longer make business sense. Last week, Los Angeles-based KB Home sold its stake in a master-planned community under construction in Palmdale.

In the second quarter, Standard Pacific, which built close to 12,000 homes last year, making it the nation's 12th-largest builder by revenue, reported a 56% drop in new-home orders and a 40% cancellation rate among its Southern California communities. The company accounted for the cancellation of the downtown project in the second quarter, when it took a $16.3-million pretax charge related to write-offs on deposits and other costs of abandoned projects in Southern California.

Standard Pacific had sold 41 of the units at its downtown project, formerly called Axis at Union Station. In June, sales were suspended and buyers were told they would receive refunds on their deposits. Last week, Standard Pacific sent letters to buyers making clear that the company would no longer be acquiring Axis and that refunds were forthcoming. The four-story complex abutting Cesar Chavez Boulevard and Alameda Street will be renamed Mozaic. Leases will range from $1,400 to $3,000 a month, said Reg Delponte, senior vice president of Lincoln.

Lincoln started building the project in the spring of 2005 as an apartment complex. But as the downtown real estate market heated up and demand for for-sale housing gained steam, Standard Pacific made a deal with Lincoln to sell the apartment units as condos. The units went on sale this year as the market started to slow.

Rising condo prices have pushed many would-be buyers to the sidelines, prompting some to rent instead. But until recently, renters had fewer options. The mad dash to build for-sale condo units depleted downtown's rental stock as developers turned existing apartment buildings into so-called condo conversions. But that has started to change as more rental units are slated for construction in and around downtown, said Delores Conway, a USC professor and author of an annual report on Southern California's multifamily housing market.

From March 2005 to March 2006, more than 1,200 new apartment units became available, Conway said. After a brief drop in the downtown occupancy rate to 83% this year, as of June, downtown apartment buildings are 98% filled, Conway said. "There was a dip but it was reabsorbed very quickly," she said. "I'm sure developers are seeing this … and possibly rethinking their positions."

The average downtown rent is about $2,000 a month, according to Conway's research.
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  #1094  
Old Posted Sep 6, 2006, 2:46 PM
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Great news for renters. The residential market in DTLA was too heavily biased toward condos, IMO. I'm going to call today and see what's available.
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  #1095  
Old Posted Sep 6, 2006, 6:12 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LongBeachUrbanist
The smart investor would hold on to her property for several years. Downtown L.A. will be a very hot market once all the current projects get completed.
Ding ding ding!!! That's exactly what I've been banking on for a year now. As for Axis, I simply think they were charging way too much to live in an area that's largely disconnected from the surronding neighborhoods (even though it's connected to the entire region by rail). I really don't think condos in South Park or the OBD will have as much of a problem selling in the coming two years.

I wouldn't be surprised to see more mixed-use residential - part lease, part for sale - especially in the multi-tower projects like LA Central, Grand Towers or Metropolis. That is if the rental market holds up...
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  #1096  
Old Posted Sep 6, 2006, 6:42 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LongBeachUrbanist
Great news for renters. The residential market in DTLA was too heavily biased toward condos, IMO. I'm going to call today and see what's available.

I completely agree with you , There needs to be a balance and if you have majority of developments as condos and catering to people with more money and not your middle class (affordable) John doe then its not going to work. These developers need to think about both not just one because in the end there are going to screw themselves . I am glad this happened its a wake up call to include everyone not just one class. There needs to be a balance period I am for major developments but it has to be equaled out to include everyone not just the privileged. Diversity makes a great city and downtown. Que no?
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  #1097  
Old Posted Sep 6, 2006, 7:07 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by colemonkee
That is if the rental market holds up...

No excuse if it doesn't, because when you add up all the ppl who've moved into either apts or condos in DT over the past few yrs, I believe there still wouldn't be enough of them to fill up Staples Ctr's 18,000+ seats, much less a stadium, like where the Dodgers play.

BTW, the DCBID's web site finally updated their pdf listings of condo & apt bldgs in the hood. It's interesting that they show metro417 at 76% occupancy & its sister apt bldg, metlofts, at 64%. That sounds a lot more reassuring than the stats for them earlier this yr, esp since I thought the location of metro417, near Pershing Sq, would make it a tougher sell than the metlofts site several blocks to the south.

However, so far, it's the kitschy, euro-villa bldgs owned by GH Palmer that remain the only new apt projs to open in the hood with most of their units preleased by opening day.

Another thing: some SSPers in the DTLA thread in the Compilations forum were posting about new devlpt in the Inland Empire, with one saying that nothing much is going up there except a lot of tract housing. Like it or not, a lot of ppl, when they're getting ready to put down some dollars for a place to call home, still prefer a house with a yard around it instead of the more urbanized highrise loft locations in hoods like DTLA. That's true even if they're going to be forced into long commutes.

I think those ppl are crazy, & I think the distant burbs they're buying into are such a monotonous snooze that they're not worth the advantages of things like lower priced housing & safer streets. However, many ppl apparently see things differently.
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  #1098  
Old Posted Sep 6, 2006, 7:43 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by citywatch
... I think those ppl are crazy, & I think the distant burbs they're buying into are such a monotonous snooze that they're not worth the advantages of things like lower priced housing & safer streets. However, many ppl apparently see things differently.
Do you think that if those apts where safer (i.e. A relative relationship of where their property tax $$$ is going) with a stronger police presence and some of those deadzone parking lots were parks and playgrounds then maybe that would turn folks towards living Downtown or staying in the City of LA?

Personally I'm very happy the condo market is topping out because that means it will make moving towards these developments more affordable and reasonable thus creating some stability that is needed to keep these things going.
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  #1099  
Old Posted Sep 6, 2006, 8:08 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PracticalVisionary
with a stronger police presence and some of those deadzone parking lots were parks and playgrounds then maybe that would turn folks towards living Downtown or staying in the City of LA?

I think a lot of ppl still get nervous dealing with many hoods in LA because they continue to see them as mostly rundown places that only poor ppl, college students or childless urban hipsters can tolerate on a daily basis.

And parks & playgrounds per se aren't going to be too helpful if they're like Pershing Sq, which often becomes the home away from home for a lot of homeless ppl or criminal types. But a lot more of a police presence would help areas throughout the hood. However, the situation in parts of DT is so unhinged, & legal & political challenges create so many roadblocks to dealing with thousands of drifters & the mentally ill, that simply pouring more $$ into the LAPD, or social services too, prob won't be enough.

It will be interesting if so called gentrification hits a wall in the next several yrs & burbanization becomes dominant all over again, or if the ppl on the other side of that "wall" (ppl in search of the lowest priced rents & housing) end up moving elsewhere, as what is happening in cities like NYC or SF, where more of those cities' residents today are better educated with higher incomes.
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  #1100  
Old Posted Sep 6, 2006, 8:24 PM
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Who would want to live next to the train station anyway?
Pay 600k to have the trains wake you up at 6am every morning?
I don't even think there are any restaurants within a 5 min walk from there.
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