Deep Pockets : Weyerhaeuser Helps Pardee Construction Co. Keep Building in Tough Times
If you’re a resident of Reseda, Van Nuys or even Ventura, the name Pardee may not ring a loud bell. But if you live in Mission Oaks, a sprawling, master-planned community in Ventura County that constitutes most of the east side of Camarillo, you’re in Pardee country for sure.
Pardee Construction Co.’s land is next to the Santa Monica Mountains at the bottom, or northern end, of the steep Conejo Grade of the Ventura Freeway. To get into the community you’ll probably use the Pleasant Valley Road-Santa Rosa Road exit, part of a freeway-access complex completed last year at a cost of $7.2 million. The project was paid for entirely by Pardee.
“Our proposals were being held up because people were afraid they’d create traffic problems,” explains Bill Teller, Pardee’s Ventura County project manager. “We could have waited for state funding, but that might have taken years.”
At a time when many developers are holding back, Pardee is throttling ahead with residential, office and various commercial developments. The fact that Pardee bought more than 1,000 acres in Camarillo in 1969 at low prices helps it weather the ups and downs of the building cycles. That, and the fact Pardee is a unit of Weyerhaeuser Co., the $9-billion, giant lumber concern that helps finance Pardee’s projects.
Expanding Operation
Since 1975, Pardee has built all 3,000 homes in the handsome, mostly earth-toned Mission Oaks community. In fact, Pardee is the biggest home builder in Ventura County. Now the company is also developing a large industrial park adjoining the Ventura Freeway and has built several retail and commercial centers in the area. To date, practically every structure in Mission Oaks (population about 8,500, or nearly one-sixth of Camarillo) was either built, designed or financed by Pardee, which in 1990 added another 300 acres to 1,150 acres it acquired originally.
Local real estate people believe Pardee bought its larger holding on the largely undeveloped Camarillo Ranch at about $2,000 an acre, less than a third of what it would be worth today. This gives Pardee a pricing advantage in the marketplace.
“We’re expected to show a profit, but we can be more flexible than most other builders about that,” notes Teller. “Since we don’t have the cash-flow problems others may have, we can afford to take a longer view of things.”
Pardee has yet another built-in advantage. A sister concern, Weyerhaeuser Mortgage Co., provides the mortgages for about one-third of Pardee’s home sales.
Teller and his 60 employees are busy, with more than 150 Pardee units either under construction or planned in the near future. While other builders are still taking their lumps, Pardee’s Ventura County operation is adapting by watching its inventories closely and concentrating on the lower end of the market.
“Business was very soft right after the earthquake,” Teller says. “There was something psychological about it. But then it picked up and we sold 10 houses in a single week. I’d say we’re getting our fair share of the market.”
Teller, 47, a pleasant, quiet-spoken executive, is seated in a conference room in Pardee Center, a three-story office building in Pardee Plaza, and shows a visitor the firm’s latest housing sales brochures.
Pardee now owns 425 acres in Mission Oaks, the rest having been contributed to the infrastructure or sold off to home buyers and others. The firm plans to build 1,900 more homes and an assortment of industrial buildings on the remaining land. “I expect us to be built out in about 10 years,” Teller says.
Even if the market would support a faster pace, it wouldn’t be permitted. A city-imposed ceiling limits residential construction permits in Camarillo to a total of 400 annually, with no single builder allowed more than 240 units.
Pardee, by far the city’s largest home builder, got 233 allotments this year, but probably won’t use them all because of Ventura County’s slow economy. For several years, the firm has been building fewer units than it’s been allotted by city planners, holding onto some allotments for use when the housing market rebounds.
Weyerhaeuser Ties
Pardee’s Camarillo housing developments range from tracts where a paired unit (half a duplex, with a private yard) can be purchased for as little as $174,000, to houses as large as 2,700 square feet that can cost in the low $300,000s.
Teller says the lower-priced end of the market is going well, that at one development there were 14 sales made on the tract’s first weekend. At the higher-priced market, however, “it’s been kind of slow. The upper market hasn’t been on fire.”
Houses in the Camarillo development are “beyond the grade,” that is at the base of the steep Conejo Grade portion of the Ventura Freeway, and so are thousands of dollars less expensive than those closer to Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley, according to Teller.
Almost all Pardee sales literature emphasizes the company’s ties to Weyerhaeuser, but Teller often builds his houses with non-Weyerhaeuser lumber. “We go for the best price. The company has a guy in L. A. who buys it by the trainload. If he can get a better deal from another supplier, he goes for it.”
Other Ventura County builders say they know little of how Pardee operates. “I don’t know anything about their inner organization and I’ve never bought one of their houses. But I know they’ve been very successful with a variety of projects,” says Russ Goodman, regional president of the Sares Regis Group, a large commercial and industrial developer.
Pardee’s Ventura County unit is one of several operations that report to Pardee Construction Co., headquartered in Westwood. In a classic corporate chain of command, Pardee Construction is a subsidiary of Weyerhaeuser Real Estate Co., which in turn is a subsidiary of Weyerhaeuser Co.
The Ventura County operation, which also has housing developments in Oxnard and Agoura, is one of several major Pardee Construction units. The others are in San Diego and Las Vegas. A fourth unit is building houses in Valencia and Palmdale.
In The Times’ 1993 survey of Southern California home builders, Pardee’s sales for last year were projected at $250 million, which ranked ninth.
Neither Teller, nor other company officials, will divulge Pardee’s financial figures, but the builder appears to be selling about 200 homes a year in Ventura County. At an average price of $225,000, that would amount to annual sales of about $45 million, not including additional revenue from rents and the sale of non-residential property.
The Pardee influence seems to be everywhere as one heads into the gently rolling countryside of the Mission Oaks development in Camarillo. There is a Jack-in-the-Box, a McDonald’s and a Marriott hotel in one center, called Pardee Plaza. Pardee sold Marriott the land on which the hotel stands, but Pardee retained ownership of most land in the plaza.
Across the street, in another Pardee center, is a Bank of A. Levy branch. In a Pardee business complex nearby, there are major employers such as Unisys, GTE California and the headquarters of Adminstrative Services Center for the Ventura County Superintendent of Schools.
Controversial Complex
Like practically everything else in Mission Oaks, the 15 or so buildings that have gone up so far in the business complex are well-maintained. They’re also graffiti-free, thanks to a Pardee policy of steaming off or painting over such signs of urban blight as soon as they’re reported.
Soon to go up is a $7-million, 11-screen movie complex. Residents of a Pardee housing tract have protested that the United Artists multiplex, which the theater chain expects to build in partnership with Pardee, will bring crime, noise and traffic problems to the area. Despite the opposition, the controversial project has received city approval. Some residents, however, have threatened to go to court in a final effort to block the theater.
“That’s their right,” Teller says. “Honestly, though, I don’t see why those people are so upset.” He notes that there is an apartment building between the theater site and the housing development. “The theater will be at least 450 feet from the nearest homes.” The apartment complex is also owned by Pardee.
Despite the attention that its theater project has received recently, Pardee is primarily a home builder. About 90% of the land in the Mission Oaks master plan has been set aside for residential development.
Uphill on a pleasantly winding road into the residential center of the community, behind Pardee-built walls, you catch glimpses of the thousands of houses and condominiums that the firm has built in the last two decades. Close to the freeway, the houses all have early-California style tile roofs. That’s mandated by an ordinance honoring the area’s link to the Adolfo Camarillo family, which once owned the land on which the city of Camarillo was developed.
Who lives in these tracts?
“Our buyers tend to be young, between 30 and 35,” Teller says. “They have established families with lots of kids. Mostly, they work for local employers. Only 15% of our buyers commute to the (San Fernando) Valley.”
Resales of Pardee-built homes suffered along with the rest of the Southern California market in the last few years, but the market here has started to stabilize, real estate agents report. “I’ve been quite busy for the past several months,” says Teresa Toomey, a broker with Coldwell Banker Town & Country. She has specialized in Mission Oaks houses for the past 10 years. Toomey says prospective buyers often ask whether a house is Pardee-built. “If they’re from outside the area, they’re also impressed with the open feeling they get here.”
Teller joined Pardee in 1989, having previously been in the land development business in the Denver area. His official title, assistant vice president, is hardly imposing, but he’s in charge of a large, mostly independent real estate enterprise. “Once we decide on our annual goals, I’m left pretty much to myself,” he said.
Teller still spends most of his time working on his various housing projects, but lately he’s been pushing his staff to complete 16 small industrial buildings in Pardee’s business park. “We’ve been getting calls about those buildings ever since the earthquake. I don’t think we’ll have much trouble selling them.”
