Arden CEO Pledges $5 Million to UCLA

Los Angeles real estate industry veteran Richard S. Ziman has committed to donate $5 million for the creation of a center for real estate research and education at the Anderson School at UCLA.

UCLA officials said Ziman’s gift--the largest amount ever committed for teaching and research at the Anderson School--doubles the amount raised so far to $10 million. Ziman, who is chairman and chief executive of Los Angeles-based Arden Realty Inc., said the new real estate center is needed to better prepare industry leaders to handle an increasingly complex set of issues ranging from financing to politics.

“Real estate was once the Wild West,” said Ziman, 58, a graduate of cross-town rival USC. “You could just get a piece of land and build what you wanted to build. Today, there are so many other [factors] that decide what’s going to get built. Real estate has become much more . . . than just the vision of a developer alone.”

The new real estate center at the Anderson School, UCLA’s graduate business school, will combine existing real estate curriculum and programs with new undergraduate courses and an executive education program for working professionals. The center, which will have its official launch later this week, also will expand its multifamily housing market forecast and host more industry symposiums. The latest multifamily housing forecast will be presented Thursday.

In recognition of Ziman’s gift, the school will name the new educational organization the Richard S. Ziman Center for Real Estate. Other major contributors include John S. Long, founding partner and chairman of real estate investment

firm Highridge Partners; John and Marion Anderson; Arden Realty and Lenore and Murray Neidorf.

The donations by Ziman and others “will enable the center to be at the forefront in addressing critical issues facing our urban society and the role of the real estate industry in Southern California,” said Bruce G. Willison, dean of the Anderson School.

The campaign to bolster UCLA’s profile in real estate research and education will intensify the competition with its local rival, the Lusk Center for Real Estate at USC, and real estate programs at universities nationwide.

“Our goal is to be one of the preeminent real estate centers in the country in the next five years,” said Stephen Cauley, associate director of the Ziman Center.

Ziman, whose offices are in Brentwood near the UCLA campus, has developed a reputation for impeccable timing after more than 20 years of buying, selling and developing commercial real estate in Southern California.

During the early 1980s, Ziman left a career as a real estate lawyer and, with partners, amassed and developed a huge portfolio of Los Angeles-area office buildings that shot up in value as the economy boomed. He then sold every square foot of space to avoid the market meltdown and prolonged recession of the 1990s. A few years later, when other investors wouldn’t touch Los Angeles-area real estate, Ziman formed Arden Realty and snapped up office buildings at bargain prices before the economy and property values rebounded.

“He’s been very successful in what can be a somewhat treacherous market,” said Jack Kyser, chief economist at the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. “He’s a survivor.”

Ziman has spent recent years building Arden, which became a publicly traded real estate investment trust six years ago, into a major force in Southern California real estate. The firm now controls nearly 20 million rentable square feet in more than 250 buildings, primarily in Southern California.

Working in the public realm and adjusting to the ways of Wall Street has proved to be a challenge for Ziman and many others long used to operating in private. The growing size and clout of publicly owned real estate companies will help fuel the need for more sophisticated training and background, Ziman said.

“You have to retrain the thinking of a lot of traditional real estate people when they became senior-level executives at a public company,” Ziman said. “That’s the hardest part.”

It also was a challenging transition for Ziman, accustomed to making quick decisions without regard to legions of shareholders and regulators. “You got filings with the SEC. You got to call your lawyers up to three times a week,” Ziman said.

“It was undoubtedly the greatest learning experience I ever had in my life,” Ziman said. “I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”