A 164-unit Oxnard apartment complex has changed hands for $338,628 per unit, the highest price paid in Ventura County in at least a decade for a property with at least 100 apartments, according to real estate data provider CoStar Group Inc.

Champion Real Estate Development Co. in Los Angeles purchased The Vines at RiverPark from a partnership of Corona Riverpark Promenade LLC and Corona Riverpark Luminaria LLC, both in Oxnard. The price totaled $55.5 million.

The sellers developed the property beginning in 2012 as part of a master-planned community that includes parks, playgrounds, open space and a 600,000-square-foot retail and entertainment complex called The Collection at RiverPark, said Adrienne Barr, a partner at Berkadia’s Westwood office, which handled both sides of the sale.

The 3040 N. Oxnard Blvd. complex was 95 percent leased at the time of sale. It is located near Pacific Coast Highway and the 101 freeway and offers a mix of two- and three-bedroom townhomes with granite kitchen countertops, washer and dryer units, balconies or patios, walk-in closets, hardwood flooring and attached two-car garages.

The purchase was part of a 1031 tax exchange for Champion, which operates and develops retail and multifamily properties throughout Southern California, including 600 E. Olive Ave., a 63-unit complex it purchased in Burbank in 2012.
“They have been known primarily as retail developers, but they are now planting their flag more as apartment developers and owners,” Barr said.

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The proposed Hollywood Cherokee apartments would rise from an approximately one-acre parking lot located just north of Hollywood Boulevard. Plans from Los Angeles-based Champion Real Estate call for a six-story building featuring 224 studio, one- and two-bedroom apartments above nearly 1,000 square feet of ground-floor restaurant space. The project would include a wide array of residential amenities, including a swimming pool, a fitness center and a four-level garage with parking accommodations for up to 305 vehicles and 252 bicycles. Twenty-four of the project’s apartments would be set aside for very low-income residents, making less than 50% of the Los Angeles median income.

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LOS ANGELES – Champion Real Estate Co. recently said that its spending goal for 2013 is $100 million in development acquisitions, and the firm has promoted Greg Beck to partner at the firm to find mixed-use properties to add to the portfolio.

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A $20 million all-cash acquisition of a heavily vacant, partially redeveloped five-building, mixed-use complex in Hollywood, Calif. out of receivership shows just how much the commercial real estate market has progressed.

For the past two years, most of the assets that have traded hands have been core assets with high occupancies and longterm leases. This deal bucks the trend.

The project, located on a 2.76-acre site, includes three small office buildings, two multifamily structures and three parking lots. The site was purchased in 2007 and in the process of being redeveloped, but as the recession set in many of the tenants pulled out, leaving it with vacancies and no further entitlements.Read More

While the number of retail properties trading is low, what is trading is going for top dollar. Retailers, meanwhile, are infilling better locations in the Golden State.

While activity is down overall in California retail real estate, the climate itself is vibrant and poised for a comeback. Although the volume of leases getting down is less than it was 3 or 4 years ago, there are a number of large, healthy tenants who have realized now is the time to get into California’s wealthy infill markets that used to have big barriers to entry.

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Bob Champion doesn’t use the word recovery. Instead, the president of Los Angeles-based
Champion Real Estate Co. sees today’s conditions as drifting back down toward earth.

“The industry is not ‘recovering,’” he told CPE. “Instead, it is coming to grips with the re-
ality that growth will be very slow, only occurring in specific niches, while at the same time
the industry will continue to deleverage.”Read More

LOS ANGELES‐Longtime retail developer and operator Robert Champion of Champion Real Estate Co. is looking to acquire $500 million in retail real estate in the Western US in the next three years, GlobeSt.com has learned exclusively. Champion, who has not been buying or building new projects since about 2006, tells GlobeSt.com that his company and his financial partners will co‐invest in all deals and are already in escrow on a couple of properties. Champion has hired Steve Boss formerly CEO and founder of Afton Property Investment Corp as the firm’s new managing director of retail investment and development hired Steve Boss, formerly CEO and founder of Afton Property Investment Corp., as the firm s new managing director of retail investment and development to spearhead the initiative. Read More

Seasoned execs share some of the mistakes they made starting out, and how the errors made they better.

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