Diversification Planned : Two Nexus Principals Start Own Development Firm
Two former principals of Nexus Development Corp. have left the development firm and, in a friendly agreement with their former employer, have started a new Orange County-based development company to be called Nexus U.S.A.
At the same time, La Jolla-based Nexus Development’s central division, with headquarters in Irvine, will continue its operations in the county--concentrating on commercial and light industrial development, while the offshoot Nexus U.S.A. specializes in retail development and real estate investments.
The new company will have co-chairmen Curt Olson and Scott Burnham, who were key principals in Nexus’ central division.
Olson said the new company will continue to share headquarters with Nexus Development in Irvine until it builds its own building.
He said that he and Burnham split with Nexus Development because the company specializes in office and research and development projects while “my partner and I have wanted to expand.”
“We’ll be able to go off into those other areas,” he said, including retail shopping centers, investment acquisitions and industrial developments.
Olson said the new corporation was formed to make involvement in those other areas easier than was possible through Nexus Development.
He said that Nexus U.S.A. will do its own marketing, construction and property management. The company has five projects, begun when Olson and Burnham were still at Nexus Development, in various stages of development. Four of those projects are retail centers--including the $10-million revamping of the Lincoln Park center in Buena Park--and one is the acquisition of an office building, Olson said.
Olson said that Nexus U.S.A has about 30 employees--most from Nexus Development.
He said that forming a new company does not represent a complete break from Nexus Development Corp. and that his firm will continue to manage the La Jolla company’s existing projects in Orange County, including the $80-million Nexus City Square office complex in Orange.
