Builder Offers to Help Renovate Downtown Area
An award-winning home builder who has carved a niche out of revitalizing older urban areas is bidding to develop 79 townhomes and flats on three blighted parcels in the city’s downtown.
So excited are city officials by the unsolicited proposal that tonight the City Council, acting as the Redevelopment Agency, will consider entering into exclusive negotiations with Seal Beach-based Olson Co. on one downtown parcel and will formally entertain proposals on the two others.
The company’s proposal is significant in that the city has long sought a developer willing to build homes in the downtown core, an area that officials say needs more residential housing to support area businesses.
“I’ve been hearing about the downtown residential component of the downtown Specific Plan since 1992,” said Mayor Jim Friedman after meeting with the developer for the first time on Friday. “Here I sit, six years later, seeing all the investment that the city has made in the historic downtown area, and sure enough, now we’re starting to see proposals come forward, and it’s exciting.”
City officials stress that although the Olson Co.’s proposals are intriguing, no commitments have been made and there have been no formal negotiations so far.
Tonight will be the first time the proposals have been laid before the Redevelopment Agency.
Still, city officials say they have been impressed in their preliminary review of the firm’s proposals, which seek no city subsidy.
The Olson Co. has made its mark in Southern California as one of the few developers specializing in the revitalization of older urban areas, particularly designated redevelopment areas such as downtown Ventura. Rather than buy undeveloped land, the company has made its profits by converting junkyards, vacant strip malls and industrial areas into unique, high-density housing developments.
Several of its developments across Orange and Los Angeles counties have included upscale perks such as kitchen islands and designer appliances. The company’s Bungalows project in Los Alamitos was selected as 1995’s best townhome complex of the year in a design competition sponsored by the National Assn. of Home Builders.
Olson officials could not be reached Friday.
Ventura Community Development Director Everett Millais said adding to the city’s interest in the Olson proposals is that the homes would be for sale, not for rent.
Not only would homeowners bring higher incomes, but condominiums and townhomes have a higher resale and reappraisal rate than apartment buildings. In a redevelopment area that makes its money off increases in property tax revenue, that is very significant, Millais said. “As long as the market is going up, it’s a plus,” Millais said.
Specifically, the Olson Co. is looking at three parcels in the downtown area. They propose building the following:
* Forty attached townhomes and flats on a 1 1/4-acre site on Thompson Boulevard between Figueroa and Palm streets. The area is the home of the Meta Motel, two houses, a parking lot and the Greyhound bus station. The five property owners have been asked to submit redevelopment proposals by Aug. 10. If those proposals or negotiated sales don’t pan out, the Redevelopment Agency has the legal power to condemn the land, buy it for a fair market price and turn it over to a developer.
* Thirteen attached townhomes on a roughly half-acre lot at Thompson and Figueroa. The parcel is owned by the Redevelopment Agency. City officials tonight will consider approving a request for development proposals on the property.
* Twenty-six attached townhomes on an acre lot at Garden and Santa Clara streets near Patagonia. This land also is owned by the Redevelopment Agency. City officials will consider tonight entering into an exclusive negotiating agreement with the Olson Co.
