Mission Valley Project Takes on Village Concept;
KB Home Acquires Oceanside Site With $17 Million Price Tag
San Diego Real Estate
by Mandy Jackson, Staff Writer
H.G. Fenton Co. says it will be part of a new community that will be in line with San Diego’s plan for a City of Villages.
The San Diego-based real estate owner and developer has sold 90 acres of a 113-acre parcel in Mission Valley for $50 million to Walnut-based Shea Homes and Continental Homes.
The land is on the north side of Friars Road between Northside Drive and Fenton Parkway.
Shea and Continental, a homebuilding company of D.R. Horton of Arlington, Texas, plan to develop the 90 acres into a master-planned community named Escala with 780 homes in six neighborhoods. Site preparations are under way.
Fenton will develop the remaining land and has contracted with Englewood, Colo.-based Archstone Communities to build a 394-unit apartment complex, which H.G. Fenton will own and manage.
Construction of the apartments will begin this fall and leasing will begin in the summer of 2003.
Fenton President Mike Neal said the property is in an ideal location, close to shopping, dining, entertainment and the San Diego Trolley line. The City of Villages plan calls for small redevelopment projects around San Diego that combine housing, jobs, transit and retail on one site.
“Our goal is in line with the City of Villages concept, where residents will have access to a variety of activities and services without ever having to leave their neighborhood,” Neal said.
The land sale to Shea and Continental was the first in a series of 1031 tax-deferred exchanges that Fenton expected to complete in April.
The exchanges allow property owners to invest in a new property within a limited amount of time before incurring capital gains on the revenue from a property sale.
After the sale, Fenton purchased Casa Mango, a 96-unit apartment property in Del Mar for $15.8 million, and River Front, a 229-unit apartment complex in Mission Valley for $35.9 million.
The sellers were GSA Casa Mango Apartments LP and GSA River Front Apartments LP. John Chu and Ed Rosen of Burnham Real Estate Services represented the sellers.
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Almost 300: Los Angeles-based KB Home purchased 52.9 acres known as Wanis View Estates in Oceanside for $17 million from Laguna Woods-based Highpointe Communities. The land will accommodate lots for 299 homes.
Mac O’Donnell, David Landes and Jeff Ragland of Costa Mesa-based O’Donnell/Atkins Co. represented the buyer and seller.
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Average Prices: According to Multiple Listing Service statistics, the average price of a house in San Diego County increased 18.5 percent to $427,787 in March 2002 from $360,915 in March of last year. The average price of condos and townhomes increased 21.5 percent from $221,965 to $269,765.
In March, 2,156 houses and 994 condos and townhomes sold, compared to 2,080 houses and 1,034 attached homes in the same month last year.
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Relocation: Nation Smith Hermes Diamond, a San Diego-based accounting and consulting firm, recently relocated its headquarters to a two-story, 42,000-square-foot building it owns near Scripps Poway Parkway and Interstate 15.
The company occupies the entire first floor. Other tenants have taken 6,000 square feet on the second floor. About 12,000 square feet is still available for lease.
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Exclusive Agents: The San Diego office of Voit Commercial Brokerage has been named the exclusive sales and leasing representative for a five-building, 192,893-square-foot high-tech manufacturing campus on 11.7 acres at 16350 W. Bernardo Drive in Rancho Bernardo.
Tenants include Sony, Hewlett-Packard, Northrop Grumman and NCR. Jon Boland, Brian Mulvaney and Randy LaChance of Voit are representing the property.
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University Projects: SDSU has hired Ninyo & Moore of San Diego to perform a geotechnical design evaluation for the university’s 48,000-square-foot, $3 million proposed environmental laboratory on the former Naval Training Center site.
Also, UCSD has retained Ninyo & Moore to provide materials testing and special inspection services during construction of $20 million in new facilities totaling 300,000 square feet for the School of Medicine on the university’s campus.
Meanwhile, San Diego-based Pacific Coast Steel Inc. is finishing up the reinforcing steel work for the new $47 million, 150,000-square-foot Center for Science and Technology at the University of San Diego, which requires 3 million pounds of rebar.
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Briefly: C. Samuel Marasco, CEO and president of LandGrant Development in San Diego has been inducted into Lamda Alpha International, an honorary land economics association. Members are chosen by invitation only. San Diego-based Environmental Business Solutions has been retained by the Poway Redevelopment Agency to provide environmental assessments at various sites in the city.
Send residential and commercial real estate news to Jackson via fax at (858) 571-3628 or via e-mail at
mjackson@sdbj.com.
Call her at (858) 277-6359, Ext. 114.
