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SIMPLY SANTEE
MJW Investments’ Santee Court to set standard
for fashionable urban living and shopping in Los Angeles.
Katie Foxworth
To make something old new again. To recast and reshape a past
use to play a new role; to fulfill a new purpose in the present.
In short, to turn into reality one of the hottest catch phrases
in real estate today: adaptive reuse. Perhaps the most definitive
example of this trend in action is MJW Investments’ Santee
Court, the largest adaptive reuse development in Los Angeles.
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| Several of Santee Court’s buildings were built
by Florence Casler, one of the first and foremost female developers
of the early 20th century. |
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Spanning 10 nearly contiguous buildings in the heart of the
city’s historic 72-block Fashion District, Santee Court
will include 110,000 square feet of retail, a 400-foot courtyard/retail
promenade, rooftop amenities such as gardens, hot tubs, basketball
courts and putting greens, as well as 578 lofts and condos renovated
from early 20th century industrial space — each old building
endowed with 15-foot lofted ceilings, large windows, rooftop
views of the city and a vintage charm that no new construction
could ever truly replicate.
“You have to preserve the old and bring in the new, consistent
to what the building was,” says Mark J. Weinstein, president
and founder of Los Angeles-based MJW Investments, owner and
developer of Santee Court. “It’s a little more like
art than construction at times. You have to be sensitive to
certain things that, if you were just building a new building,
you wouldn’t have to do. But it really brings charm as
one of the amenities.”
Just over 5 years ago, word spread through the industry grapevine
that Arthur Gerry, a prominent local real estate investor, planned
to sell some property that his family had owned for nearly 50
years. The opportunity to buy 10 garment and textile manufacturing
buildings, all originally built between 1908 and 1929, was too
enticing to pass up. Not only did the historic buildings offer
vintage charm and a critical mass unlike any other project in
L.A., the setting itself — the Fashion District, which
today constitutes a $9 billion industry in L.A. — was
reason enough. Already familiar with the vibrancy of the area
and already experienced in converting old buildings to commercial
use, Weinstein jumped at the chance. Yet he wanted to do it
right. To that end, he and an MJW team spent 2 years touring
other adaptive reuse projects in cities like Denver, Dallas,
Seattle and Portland, Oregon, for inspiration.
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| A vintage photograph of the historic Connell Building
at 7th and Los Angeles streets. |
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“We met with the developers, the mayors, the parking specialists,
architects, contractors, tenants, managers, everybody,”
Weinstein says. “To find out what was good, what was bad,
what didn’t work.” Mockingbird Station in Dallas
particularly stood out in Weinstein’s mind, especially
the idea of a movie theater tied into a gourmet restaurant.
Although, Weinstein says, he was inspired by elements of each
project he visited. “The way they integrated parking and
housing and retail, I liked pieces of all of them,” he
says. “It’s intermodal, how you tie in transportation
to housing. I learned a little bit from all of them.”
Ironically, the head of the Dallas Transportation Authority
at the time, Roger Snoble, is now CEO of the Los Angeles County
Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). “Mr. Snoble
designed all the great transportation that I liked in Dallas,
and now he’s head of the MTA in L.A.,” Weinstein
says. “That’s exciting because he really understands
mixed-use.”
MJW Investments certainly understands mixed-use as well. After
securing $32.2 million in construction financing from Washington
Mutual Bank ($29.2 million) and Century Housing ($3 million),
the company is now well underway on Santee Court’s initial
phase, located at Los Angeles and 7th streets. Phase I will
convert the old Connell, Bailey Hat and Brownstein-Louis buildings
into 165 lofts/ condominiums for rent and 40,000 square feet
of retail. Construction began in April 2003 and is expected
to be completed in March. Phase II, which will include 88 for-sale
condos and 12,000 square feet of retail, is rolling a little
ahead of schedule and now looking at a summer 2004 start date.
Weinstein says the condos should be ready for occupancy by first
quarter 2005. Phase III will include another 299 rental lofts
and 40,000 square feet of additional retail. The entire project
should wrap by early 2006.
Santee Court mixes more than just real estate property types:
it also mixes incomes. Included in the project will be 20 percent
affordable housing, which Weinstein voluntarily incorporated
up front. “I believe that a mixed-use project affords
people in the lower income level an opportunity to associate
and mix with people in the middle incomes,” he says. “It’s
really important: who you associate with is who you become.
That inspired me to do it. We didn’t get any financial
or zoning incentives. Eventually the type of financing that
we secured did require it, but we’d already committed
to doing it. I’ve never heard of anyone doing it voluntarily,
to be honest.”
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| The 824 Building at Santee Court. |
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With its diverse mix of incomes and uses, close proximity to
public transportation and a density any retailer would covet,
Santee Court is sure to attract the best retailers and restaurateurs.
“There’s a lot of opportunity for our retailers
to do good business,” Weinstein says. “You have
a public that’s underserved, and there’s great foot
traffic 6 days a week. A lot of that comes from Los Angeles
Street, the main thoroughfare. On weekends, 18,000 people go
by our buildings. It’s very convenient to a lot of things:
the California Mart, which is 2.8 million square feet, and all
these offices and fashion people who have no drug store, no
nice restaurant, nothing to go to at lunch. No open space, no
sense of place.”
Weinstein hopes Santee Court will change all of that. He’s
adding a national drug retailer on the corner of 7th and Los
Angeles streets, as well as a food court, sidewalk table cafés
and a pocket park tucked away in the alley-like courtyard, where
small concerts can be held. A specialty market will reside in
the back of the courtyard, while a fashion tenant and upscale
bar set up shop nearby. The combined synergy creates a sense
of community and proves that, even in a giant metropolis like
Los Angeles, it is still possible to create cities within cities
— places that create a sense of place, places where people
can congregate. Now, Weinstein says, people will finally have
somewhere to go after the fashion shows.
“Santee Court has it all,” he says. “Every
amenity they need — food, drink, probably a drop-off drycleaner
and a gym, concierge, parking, a pool — will be here.”
Within a mile are Disney Hall and “Nighttime Broadway,”
as well as the Staples Center. Talks are also in the works about
adding nighttime routes to the 25-cent Dash bus line, which
would make the area a more 24-hour environment. The project
is already near the second largest Metro station in the city.
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| Santee Court will include a pedestrian promenade
and courtyard with stores and cafés. |
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“We had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to buy 10 buildings
in the heart of the metropolitan downtown,” Weinstein
says. And now people see their once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
to be its first residents. “People want to sign up for
the condos already. We haven’t even finished our lease
yet. The city has tours of the lofts on Saturdays, and they’re
always sold out.”
Great things are expected from the $130 million Santee Court,
marking a pivotal moment in the city’s efforts to reinvent
the notion of urban life in downtown L.A., an area where developable
land is scarce and its reputation for downtown living is hardly
stellar. A Los Angeles resident all his life, Weinstein founded
MJW Investments in 1982 and, since then, his company has been
doing its best to turn that negative notion upside down by providing
mixed-use, mixed-income housing to L.A. residents. Over the
years, MJW has been involved in the ground-up development and
renovation of more than 10,000 apartments and more than 10 million
square feet of commercial space. In 2001, it was named the Number
1 fastest growing private company in Los Angeles by the Los
Angeles Business Journal. With Santee Court sure to put another
feather in its cap, MJW Investments appears poised to continue
along that same successful path.
©2004 France Publications, Inc. Duplication
or reproduction of this article not permitted without authorization
from France Publications, Inc. For information on reprints of
this article contact Barbara
Sherer at (630) 554-6054.
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