Maguire Reviving Plans for Pasadena Project

Developer Maguire Partners has revived plans to complete the long-delayed second half of its Plaza Las Fuentes office and hotel project in Pasadena, where a series of major commercial and residential projects is in the works.

The Los Angeles-based real estate firm said it has approached city officials about building a 350,000-square-foot office building at the northwest corner of Colorado Boulevard and Los Robles Avenue. If the firm receives the necessary city approvals, construction could begin in 2001, said Timothy H. Walker, senior vice president at Maguire Partners.

“The market there is pretty good right now,” Walker said.

The new office complex would rise more than a decade after the first phase of Plaza Las Fuentes--which includes a 350-room Doubletree hotel and a 185,000-square-foot office building--opened in 1989. The second phase was to have opened within two years, but Southern California’s real estate recession forced the firm to put the project on hold.

Pasadena’s real estate market has rebounded strongly in recent years as high-technology and Internet-related companies, such as EarthLink Network and Idealab, gobbled up space while new construction remained scarce. Meanwhile, the popularity of the Old Pasadena retail and entertainment district raised the city’s profile among residents and business owners. Now, Pasadena’s office vacancy rate is below 7%, according to real estate research firm Costar Group Inc.

“It’s a good city that’s stable and wants to grow,” Walker said.

The second phase of Plaza Las Fuentes is one of several real estate developments seeking to profit from the city’s economic revival.

Across Colorado Boulevard from Plaza Las Fuentes, the failed Plaza Pasadena will receive a $135-million make-over that will transform it into Paseo Colorado, an open-air retail and residential project. Canadian developer TrizecHahn Corp. will carve out street-front shops, a gourmet grocery store, movie theaters, a health club and 400 luxury apartments from the carcass of the enclosed mall.

Farther east at Colorado Boulevard and Lake Avenue, Koll Development Co. recently secured $15 million in financing to start construction on a $40-million, speculative office project. The 176,170-square-foot tower will be the first new office building in central Pasadena in nearly a decade.

In the western section of the city, Legacy Partners is in the process of securing government approvals to build a major residential and commercial project on the site of the former Ambassador College. The 48-acre property, which straddles the 210 Freeway, will include approximately 1,000 apartment and condominium units and 400,000 square feet of office space. Legacy Partners executive Bill Shubin said construction on some portions of the project could begin next fall.

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“Vacancy rates are low,” Shubin said. “We think the market is quite strong.”