Irvine Apartment Begins Joint-Management Venture

Tightening control over its growing empire, Irvine Apartment Communities Inc. on Tuesday announced a new joint venture to manage the 15,000 units it owns at 51 complexes in Orange County and San Diego.

Irvine Apartment, a Newport Beach-based real estate investment trust, will own 51% of the new company, Irvine Apartment Management Co. The rest will be owned by Western National Property Management of Orange.

Western National, which already manages half of Irvine Apartment’s units, will handle day-to-day operations.

Some of the Irvine Apartment complexes previously had been managed by Sares-Regis Group and J&M; Realty. More than 250 of those companies’ employees will transfer to the new company when it begins operation on April 1, said Scott G. Newnam, a strategic planner for Irvine Apartment.

Irvine Apartment is a publicly traded sister company to the private Irvine Co., developer of Orange County’s huge Irvine Ranch. Besides building apartments on the ranch, Irvine Apartment is expanding into San Diego and the Silicon Valley.

At year’s end, it owned or was developing 59 complexes with a total of 17,248 apartments.

Many other real estate investment trusts have internal or allied property management operations, and Irvine Apartment’s decision “wasn’t exactly a surprise,” said Sares-Regis spokeswoman Zoe Solsby. She said the company hopes to work for Irvine Apartment “off the ranch” in the future. “We don’t consider this a divorce.”

Newnam said Irvine Apartment’s generally high-end renters place high demands on the company, which wants to respond by elevating the service at its apartments.

New hires will be trained extensively and will be encouraged to make careers out of managing the apartments, Newnam said.