Crowning Touch : A Successful Playa Vista Project Will Cap Developer’s Career

If Robert Maguire was judged by his collection of downtown Los Angeles skyscrapers, the impression of him would be of a sleek, refined, straight-laced corporate executive. But spend time with him on the squash court, friends say, and a different picture emerges.

Cursing freely, laughing at his bad shots and cracking jokes, the intensely competitive, silver-haired developer whacks the ball aggressively in the squash court of his sprawling Brentwood home. Between shots, the talk ranges from football to art to politics.

“I like to see that side of him,” said friend and environmentalist Peter Kreitler, who used to play in a long-standing Monday night squash game at the Maguire home. “Whatever he does, he embraces it fully, whether it’s mountain biking or squash or business.”

The Los Angeles real estate executive will need all the tenacity he displays on the squash court to complete the biggest project of his career: Playa Vista, a mini-city south of Marina del Rey of 50,000 residents and workers and, if all the wheeling and dealing holds together, a multimedia and film production center anchored by DreamWorks SKG.

The Los Angeles City Council gave initial approval this month to Playa Vista as well as controversial tax breaks after a political and media blitz that featured DreamWorks’ all-star owners--Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen. Maguire remained mostly out of the spotlight despite the enormous potential and profit the $7-billion project holds for his firm.

In the parlance of Hollywood, Playa Vista could prove the blockbuster hit Maguire and his firm--Maguire Thomas Partners--needs to end a long dry spell marked by plunging property values and personal setbacks.

Once the builder of choice for corporate giants like IBM Corp. that have cut way back on office space, Maguire at age 60 has recast himself in a new role as developer to the fast-rising stars of entertainment and multimedia.

The dark-suited corporate chiefs Maguire once wooed as tenants have been shoved aside by the likes of Spielberg, who met Maguire for the first time last year dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt.

“It’s a learning experience for us,” said Maguire, a man not known for his colorful quotes in interviews.

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During the 1980s, Robert Maguire III and partner James Thomas developed a series of complex projects nationwide that won the firm praise for visionary design and respect for business and political savvy. The 30-year-old firm now owns and manages about 25 million square feet of office space, including the tallest building in Los Angeles--the 73-story First Interstate World Center.

“He’s the godfather of Los Angeles high-rises,” said John Semcken III, a real estate marketing executive. “He has the finest buildings in the city to his credit.”

The UCLA graduate attracted major corporations, such as IBM, as both tenants and investors, reducing the firm’s risk and filling space quickly. From government officials, the firm extracted concessions and development rights to build projects much larger than normally allowed.

In downtown Los Angeles, for example, Maguire won the right to build First Interstate World Center and another skyscraper by agreeing to provide $110 million toward the renovation of the nearby Los Angeles Central Library.

A stickler for details and the design, Maguire, accompanied by his wife, Susan, and architect Richard Keating, once scaled the fence of a subcontractor’s closed storage yard to inspect the window glass for a skyscraper. “He wanted to see if it was just right,” Keating said.

The native Oregonian’s passion for building extends to personal pursuits, ranging from the arts to athletics. Maguire presided over the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s board of directors. He rides mountain bikes with his pal, Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, and skis despite injuries from a body surfing accident that has limited the mobility of his upper body.

Active in Los Angeles high society, the Maguires, who recently separated, have hosted numerous charity fund-raisers as well as flown friends on their personal jet on trips to places like Spain.

Politically well-connected, Maguire has supported state and local candidates and statewide initiatives with more than $140,000 in contributions since 1987. Gov. Pete Wilson alone has received more than $60,000.

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But Maguire’s golden touch during the 1980s did not fully insulate his firm from the commercial real estate bust of the early 1990s. Maguire has repeatedly denied rumored financial problems in the wake of layoffs and a plunge in property values in downtown Los Angeles, where Maguire Thomas is the largest landlord.

In Pasadena, a large vacant lot on Colorado Boulevard sits empty three years after Maguire Thomas was scheduled to have started building the second phase of a large commercial complex.

Downtown brokers were shocked when the cash-strapped Los Angeles Unified School District was able to sublet space in Maguire’s plush Wells Fargo Plaza on Bunker Hill at rents a third of those commanded only a few years ago.

“To think of the school district in a Maguire space five years ago would have been ludicrous,” one broker said.

Maguire Thomas has also seen a number of key partners leave the firm to start up their own businesses, including Nelson Rising, a well-connected attorney who played a major role in winning support for Playa Vista.

Last year, Maguire sold off a vacant housing project in Flint, Mich., which was part of an ill-fated foray to build well-designed low-income housing. Constructed by Maguire Thomas in the 1970s and leased and operated by the Flint Housing Commission for 20 years, the Wilson apartment project fell into disrepair, with Maguire claiming the commission failed to properly maintain the 160-unit complex and the agency saying the project was poorly built.

“It was an experiment of mine,” Maguire said. “It didn’t work.”

Even the art world proved no refuge. While struggling to improve the finances of the Los Angeles County Museum Art, Maguire suffered an embarrassing setback when his choice for museum director, Michael Shapiro, resigned in August 1993 after less than a year on the job amid complaints he was inexperienced. “These were traumatic times,” Maguire said.

While Maguire waited for the real estate market to recover, his firm was slowly getting the necessary public and government support for Playa Vista as well as looking for new types of tenants. He did not have to look very far.

In Burbank and Glendale, commercial space was being gobbled up by busy film and television production firms and a new breed of multimedia firms involved in computers, telecommunications and entertainment. In 1994, Maguire attended workshops with various executives and artists to talk about the future of entertainment and multimedia technologies.

“Rob did a lot of listening,” said talent agency chief Jeff Berg, who arranged the workshops for Maguire.

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By the time Spielberg, Katzenberg and Geffen toured Playa Vista, Maguire and his team had already decided to reconfigure the nearly three-mile-long site, replacing traditional office space with a vast creative campus tailored to the high-tech needs of entertainment and multimedia firms.

Although construction is not scheduled to begin until the middle of next year, Maguire wants to duplicate the creative campus concept of Playa Vista. Already, Maguire Thomas has prepared plans for such a project in Glendale.

“We are thinking of doing it internationally,” Maguire said. “What we do here with DreamWorks is something we can link to other parts of the world.”