Tami Halton Pardee, Founder of Halton Pardee + Partners, discusses 2017 real estate trends with reporter Elex Michaelson. Live on ABC 7 Eyewitness News, December 14, 2017. Tami discussed where interest rates are going and the mood in the market, post-election. Tami also pointed out L.A.'s next hot neighborhoods, including those along the Expo Line light rail.
Blog: Updates on Urbanology
How the Future Gets Built
Mayor Eric Garcetti's keynote to FutureBuild / VerdeXchange heralded the coming restoration of the L.A. River. photo by Dlugolecki Photography
Urban Explorations from FutureBuild / VerdeXchange
By Jack Skelley
Los Angeles Major Eric Garcetti joined international change-makers of the built envirornment at the recent FutureBuild Sessions produced by ULI Los Angeles with VerdeXchange. The annual event, which attracts designers, developers, civic leaders, and environmental stakeholders, explored urgent urban issues, including: transforming the Los Angeles River; the world’s greenest buildings; how transportation tech is transforming cities; places built to withstand quakes, droughts and climate change, and more.
Garcetti’s keynote address trumpeted ambitious efforts to restore the Los Angeles River. A recent agreement with Army Corps of Engineers allocatoes $1.3 billion for the effort – which Garcetti deemed “the largest urban ecosystem restoration the Army Corps has ever seen.” Stakeholders have not yet approved plans, which include a proposal by architect Frank Gehry. Garcetti nonetheless was upbeat, saying, “I look forward to hearing the music of the River.”
Made to Last: Getting to Resiliency
Resiliency panel, left to right: Rick Cole, Frank Bush, Marissa Aho and Ann Gray. photo by Dlugolecki Photography
Made to Last, a panel on resiliency (including seismic and infrastructure challenges) was moderated by Ann Gray, Principal of GRAY Real Estate Advisors. Contributors were Marissa Aho, Chief Resiliency Officer, City of Los Angeles, Frank Bush, Executive Officer, Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety, and Rick Cole, Santa Monica City Manager. Gray launched the discussion with a compelling video, “Our Changing World,” produced by RICS and dramatizing trends reshaping the planet.
The conversation quickly got local. Saying, “There is simply not enough money to go around,” Cole noted that before Los Angeles can address drastic resilience issues, the city faces approximately $100 billion in infrastructure needs. Bush cited the approximately 13,000 buildings in the city that require seismic retrofits. Aho offered some solace, reporting that L.A. is among the 100 Resilient Cities funded by Rockefeller Foundation, and that the city is implementing 18 recommendations of seimologist Dr. Lucy Jones, the influential “earthquake lady.”
Challenges remain huge. Cole blasted the “immature poltical culture” that fixates on the click-bait of fear and hysteria, rather than on real solutions.
“We have to get back to the basics” of fixing the city, he said. “Otherwise we willhave a third-world infrastructure trying to govern a first-world economy.”
Cole had the ear-catching quote of the day: “The best cities in Italy are run by communists. The best cities in the Southern California are run by renters,” (namely, Santa Monica and West Hollywood).
The Evolution of Energy
Panel on the most sustainable buildings in the world, left to right: David Kramer, Harlan Kelly, Frances Anderton and David Martin. photo by Dlugolecki photography
Another compelling panel was The Most Sustainable Buildings in the World, with moderator Frances Anderton, host of "DnA: Design and Architecture," KCRW; joined by David Martin, FAIA, Design Principal, AC Martin, who is designing the the 73-story Wilshire Grand tower; David Kramer, President, Hudson Companies, creating Manhattan’s Riverwalk on Roosevelt Island, considered one of the most energy-efficient developments in the world; and Harlan Kelly, General Manager, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.
The Riverwalk technologies are advanced, responding to New York’s extremes of heat, cold, and even inundating storm surges. In some ways, the mission for Los Angeles buildings is simpler: to unlearn unnecessary design habits. Martin says his team will “fine-tune” the Wilshire Grand to Downtown L.A.’s micro-climate.
Approaches include breathable skin, and smaller and smarter air-conditioning, so that the building’s HVAC system is not working overtime. The skyscraper will include hundreds of openable windows, which, for some reason, are still rare in L.A. high-rises.
“In New York City you want to insulate the client from the climate,” Martin said. “ In L.A. we want to connect with the outside where it’s beautiful outside right now!”
Hyperloop and Healthy Communities
With panels jointly produced by ULI Los Angeles and VerdeXchange, the cross-polination was fertile. Next Generation Sustainable Development had moderator Richard Katz, Founder, Katz Consulting, Inc. asking questions of Randall Lewis, Owner, Lewis Group of Companies; Quay Hays, CEO, GROW Holdings; and Michael Dieden, Founder, Creative Housing Associates. These are three of California’s most visionary developers.
Hays is creating Quay Valley, a sustainable town planned in Central California that will also house the first test-track for the revolutionary hyperloop transportation technology. Dieden is a pioneer of transit-oriented developments who is passionate about creating human-scaled environments. And Lewis is a constant innovator whose latest communities – many on Ontario Ranch in California’s Inland Empire – include emerging concepts
He listed them in rapid-fire: healthy design (in coordination with ULI’s Building Healthy Places initiative); education-centered communities with schools and joint-use facilities at the center; “Harvest” branded developments with edible landscaping and outdoor dining; and, with heathcare a growing industry in the Inland Empire, an ambitious coordination with local colleges and medical educators.
Many of them fall under the Healthy Ontario banner, which emphasizes prevention and wellness, access to healthcare, education and lifelong learning, and safe and complete neighborhoods.
A Year of Urbanology
Jack Skelley and JSPR thank colleagues, clients and cohorts for another inspiring year. May 2015 be even more awesome! This super-speed video grabs just some of the highlights of the year.
Urbanology Updates: Downtown to Dairyland
One Santa Fe: JSPR is now repping the iconic One Santa Fe. Designed by starchitect Michael Maltzan, this new Arts District landmark is L.A.'s longest building (nearly 1/3 of a mile!), with 438 view residences. Its cool retail (The Yards) is from Runyon Group – the city's most adventurous retail team. One Santa Fe is an architectural mind-blower. Pure horizontality and odd angles render dozens of unique floorplates and views. OSF brings the long-blossoming Arts District to full flower. Just around the corner, former MOCA curator Paul Schimmel and international gallery powerhouse Hauser & Wirth will open a seven-building arts compound. One Santa Fe’s first phase opens in September.
Anaheim: If you think Anaheim is just Disney, the Ducks, The Angels and Convention Center (that’s not enough?), then visit The Packing District. It's where LAB Holding and the City of Anaheim created The Packing House. The beautifully restored, historic Packing House is packed with indie eateries. It’s a scene! SoCal’s answer to SF’s Ferry Building. The surrounding Packing District includes Farmer’s Park (with entertainment and farmers market) and urban dwelling at The Domain. Created by Brookfield Residential – and joining 1,500 new homes in downtown Anaheim – this is the residential centerpiece of The Packing District, and a true foodie mecca. Here is ABC7’s coverage.
Huffington Post: Look for my monthly reports on design in the public realm. A recent visit to New York City inspired an upcoming post comparing bike infrastructure in Manhattan and L.A. Both cities are dangerously lacking! Most recent column is about how major cities are suffering the worst from – and doing the most about – devastating climate change.
The Farm Campus: It was a blast working with writer Jessica Blotter andCuningham Group Architecture on this Fast Company article. The healthcare software campus is as green and innovative as any Google or Apple HQ, but it’s in the heart of rural Wisconsin and astonishingly disguised as a huge dairy farm!
Home Base for Silicon Beach
Trevion, a new neighborhood in Playa Vista, by Brookfield Residential.
On February 22, 2014 Playa Vista officially continues its history of innovation with the opening of six new neighborhoods. These are the first of an eventual 2,800 new homes. The new neighborhoods include architectural advances unique to Los Angeles, yet designed precisely for Playa Vista’s Westside setting. The community is especially suited to residents who also work at its red-hot commercial campus.
This “home base” for Silicon Beach already includes YouTube Space L.A. and 72andSunny (Ad Week’s Agency of the Year), with more tech and creative firms continually flocking here… like fowl to Playa Vista’s restored wetlands. Community highlights arriving within the year include Runway (with Whole Foods, restaurants and theaters).
Media are taking notice of the completion of one of L.A.’s best urban masterplans. The Hollywood Reporter’s Alexandria Abramian broke the news last month. And this week L.A. Business Journal’s Bethany Firnhaber has a complete rundown of Playa’s final phase.
Here is the complete LA Business Journal story (for those of you without a subscription):
Playa Vista In Home Stretch
Real Estate: Developers launch the project’s final phase.
Monday, February 10, 2014
Nearly four decades after developers first began dreaming up plans for an idyllic L.A. community near the beach called Playa Vista, construction there has begun in earnest on its second and final phase.
Thousands of homes are in early stages of construction, with the sales effort for the master-planned community, which is nestled between Westchester and Marina del Rey, slated to begin later this month. The mix of single-family homes, condominiums, apartments and senior living facilities, will bring an additional 2,800 residential units to Playa Vista. The majority of the first phase, with 3,100 units, was completed six years ago.
Canadian homebuilder Brookfield Residential Properties Inc., which in 2012 bought Playa Vista developer Playa Capital Co. for about $250 million, will build two of six total for-sale communities. One, called Trevion, will offer the largest and most expensive options in Playa Vista, with a series of two- and three-story detached homes with small private yards and two-car garages. The other, dubbed Camden, will offer the smallest and least expensive floor plans in a series of sixplex condominium buildings, also with private two-car garages.
While Brookfield Residential has held on to some parcels, it has sold off pieces of the sprawling site, once owned by Howard Hughes, to KB Home of Westwood, Irvine Co. and Tri Pointe Homes of Irvine, Lincoln Property Co. of Dallas and the Los Angeles Jewish Home of Reseda, all of which have begun developments.
Marc Huffman, vice president of planning and entitlements for Brookfield Residential, said the homes are a necessary component of the overall plan for Playa Vista, which aims to provide residents a unified live-work community. Covering roughly two-thirds of the site’s developable area, the nearly 6,000 homes will complement approximately 3 million square feet of office space already built at the east end of the project, including the Hercules Campus and the Bluffs at Playa Vista. Those Class A office campuses have become home to technology companies such as YouTube, Facebook and Belkin. And so many ad agencies have moved into the area that people are beginning to refer to it as a mini-Madison Avenue, as reported in the Business Journal’s Jan. 6 issue. Employees at those companies are squarely in developers’ sights.
“West L.A. is very jobs rich; you’ve got something like three jobs for every housing unit out here,” Huffman said. “People who want to live closer to where they work can’t, so we’re making that possible.”
Hughes history
Efforts to develop Playa Vista on what was then the largest undeveloped plot of land in the city of Los Angeles began in 1978, just two years after Hughes’ death. The 1,076-acre expanse of oceanside property, largely grassy wetlands, was where Hughes built his aerospace empire, including the legendary Spruce Goose jumbo jet.
In the years that followed, the site passed through the hands of a series of developers, from Maguire Thomas Partners to Playa Capital – a venture of Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Oaktree Capital headed by current Los Angeles Police Commission President Steve Soboroff – which was sold in 2012 to Brookfield. Previous owners’ plans were stymied by both poor economic times as well as lawsuits and protests by environmentalists who worried about wildlife, native tribes who worried about ancient burial sites and residents who worried about traffic, to name a few.
Construction on Playa Vista’s Phase 1 finally began in 2001 and the majority was completed in 2008. Six years later, Phase 2 is under way.
Alison Banks, marketing director for Brookfield Residential, said plans for the second wave of homes to be built in Playa Vista evolved over the years as the development company recognized that the community was changing. The first wave of residents to move into Playa Vista largely consisted of single people, childless couples and empty-nesters. Now, the wide sweeping streets are dotted with parents pushing young children in strollers.
“When people first moved in here, they had dogs, but most didn’t have kids,” she said. “But we’ve had a baby boom here over the last five years and now there are families on their third child.”
While housing options in Phase 1 included smaller one- and two-bedroom condominiums, apartments and homes, Phase 2 will put more emphasis on detached single-family homes with three- and four-bedrooms.
With options coming in at less than $590 a square foot, the housing in the latest phase will be above Los Angeles County’s median price but still below that of most nearby Westside communities.
The smallest, least expensive single-family option, in a residential development by Tri Pointe called Woodson, will start around $1.2 million, or about $561 a square foot. The smallest and least expensive condo option, in Brookfield Residential’s Camden project, will start around $950,000, or about $593 a square foot.
By comparison, in Venice, a hot Silicon Beach market a short jaunt north of Playa Vista, the median square-foot price of the 27 single-family homes sold in December was $955; the median square-foot price of the three condominiums sold in that period was $613, according to Seattle brokerage services firm Redfin. In Westchester, which borders Playa Vista to the south, home prices are significantly lower. The median square-foot price of 26 single-family homes sold there in December was about $489, with the median square-foot price of six condominiums about $305.
Banks said Playa Vista offers an independent small-town feel neighboring communities might lack. In addition to having its own ZIP code, Playa Vista has its own school, fire station, parks and a free shuttle service to and from the beach. Furthermore, Lincoln Property is expected to open Runway, a 220,000-square-foot retail center with a Whole Foods, a nine-screen Cineplex movie theater and at last five restaurants, before the end of the year.
“In the morning you can see hundreds of little kids streaming across the street to the school with their mom and dad on their little scooters, which they just lean up against the bike rack without even locking it,” she said. “We’re in the city, yet we’ve got sweet, small-town charms.”