Daily Business Report-July 18, 2013

San Diego County Home Prices Climb 

Increased market confidence reported throughout Southern California

Home prices in San Diego County in June rose to their highest level in more than five years, according to La Jolla-based DataQuick, a real estate information service.

• The median home price during the month was $416,500 — highest since January 2008 when the median price was $429,000.

• The median home price in June of last year was $335,500. Last month it was $406,500.

• County home sales in June totaled 4,048, an increase of 7.8 percent from

sales of 3,756 in June of last year and a decline from May’s home sales of 4,236.

Southern California Totals:

Home sales fell in June amid a still-tight supply of homes for sale, rising mortgage rates and a letup in investor buying. The median sale price rose at a record year-over-year pace to the highest level – $385,000 – in more than five years.

A total of 21,608 new and resale houses and condos sold in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Ventura, San Bernardino and Orange counties last month. That was down 6.2 percent from 23,034 sales in May, and down 2.1 percent from 22,075 sales in June 2012.

The median price paid for all new and resale houses and condos sold in the six-county region was $385,000 last month, up 4.6 percent from $368,000 in May and up 28.3 percent from $300,000 in June 2012. Last month’s median was the highest for any month since April 2008, when it was also $385,000, and the year-over-year increase was the highest for any month in DataQuick’s records back to January 1989.

Increased Market Confidence   

In a sign of continued market confidence, Southern California home buyers continue to put near-record amounts of their own money into residential real estate. In June they paid a total of $4.7 billion out of their own pockets in the form of down payments or cash purchases. That was down from May’s all-time high of $5.5 billion, and up from $4.1 billion a year ago.

“This market’s getting really interesting,” said John Walsh, DataQuick president. “Rates have shot up enough to put a dent in housing affordability. Investor and cash buyers are starting to back off a bit, while there’s evidence the supply of homes on the market, while still thin by historical standards, has risen meaningfully. We saw an amazing pop in home prices over the last year. Now we see signs suggesting that blistering pace won’t persist. We continue to believe that a ‘supply response’ to the run-up in prices will gradually tame price appreciation. If mortgage interest rates shoot up again then that’s virtually a given.

Cassidy Turley Acquires San Diego Project Management Services

Cassidy Turley, a national commercial real estate services provider, has acquired San Diego Project Management Services, a project management firm led by industry veteran Ron Sutliff. Sutliff, along with Project Manager Suzanne Hoffman, will work out of the Cassidy Turley La Jolla office and provide construction management services for new site development, build-to-suits and tenant improvement projects.  

“San Diego Project Management Services has a track record that includes $1 billion in construction projects totaling more than 15 million square feet,” said Gary Helminski, a Cassidy Turley principal.

Sutliff has more than 35 years of experience in the industry with a focus on corporate, governmental, industrial, manufacturing, biomedical and healthcare facilities. He has been responsible for some of San Diego County’s most notable projects including a 430,000-square-foot corporate campus for Intuit; 320,000-square-foot campus for Motorola (General Instruments); and135,000-square-foot campus with laboratory for Nuvasive.

Hoffman specializes in move management and furniture, fixtures and equipment management. Her previous experience includes the NuVasive, Intuit and Medtronic relocations, as well as the 130,000-square-foot move of Procopio, Cory, Hargreaves & Savitch LLP that involved 200 employees.

First North County Cheesecake Factory opening in Escondido

North County’s first Cheesecake Factory restaurant is under construction at the Westfield mall in Escondido and is expected to open before the holiday season in November. The Cheesecake Factory is part of a larger revitalization of Westfield North County mall completed last year, and is also bringing new retailers such as Brothers, XRyderz and Art of Shaving.

Zayo Group Upgrading Fiber-Optic Network

Zayo Group announces it is expanding its fiber network in the San Diego market by over 5,000 fiber miles. The expansion will provide additional capacity on existing routes, as well as extend its metro network to include surrounding communities of Oceanside, Encinitas, Del Mar and Escondido.  The new network will provide access to important carrier, health care, technology, energy and government locations.

Scripps Announces Discovery of Anthrax-Killing Compound

A compound that appears to be an effective killer of anthrax and other infectious organisms was discovered by a researcher in the ocean off Santa Barbara, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography announced Wednesday.

Scripps researcher Chris Kauffman collected the microorganism that produces the compound last year from sediments close to shore. The unusual structure of the compound, which was named anthracimycin, was tested by the Scripps Center for Marine Biotechnology and Biomedicine and San Diego-based Trius Therapeutics. Initial results revealed its potency as a killer of anthrax, the infectious disease often feared as a biological weapon, according to Scripps. (City News Service report)

 Scripps Partners With Sigma-Aldrich

Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) has partnered with St. Louis, Mo.-based Sigma-Aldrich to fund research and provide immediate, day-of-publication access to Scripps researchers’ discoveries for the synthesis and analysis of potential drugs. The partnership promises to eliminate months from the translation of cutting-edge chemistry into widespread applications for drug discovery, according to the companies. The partnership includes six TSRI research labs led by Professors Phil Baran, Jin-Quan Yu, Benjamin Cravatt, Carlos Barbas, Phillip Dawson, and Nobel Laureate K. Barry Sharpless. TSRI will receive funds to be used to expand capacity for basic research.

Procopio Law Firm Promotes Staffers

Brian Kennedy and Michael Nolan have been promoted from staff attorneys to associates, and Jaclyn Simi has been promoted from law clerk to associate at the Procopio law firm in San Diego. Brian Kennedy joins the intellectual property team at Procopio’s Downtown San Diego office. He received his JD from University of San Diego School of Law, where he graduated Cum Laude. He previously served as an extern to the Honorable Peter W. Bowie of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of California. Michael Nolan is joining the construction team in Procopio’s Del Mar office, focusing his practice on business and civil litigation. Nolan received his JD from the University of San Diego School of Law, where he graduated Cum Laude and was a member of the Order of the Coif. Jaclyn Simi joins the labor and employment and Native American teams in the Downtown San Diego office. A citizen of the Seminole Nation, Simi has worked with Native American tribes and tribal-affiliated clients, including employment and lending laws’ applicable to tribal employers. She received her JD from California Western School of Law.

Union Bank Adds Community Loan Officer in Oceanside

Jason Arthur Barela has joined Union Bank’s consumer lending team as a community loan officer in the bank’s Oceanside office. Barela is responsible for introducing customers to the bank’s Economic Opportunity Mortgage program designed for individuals with low- to moderate-income households or who are purchasing or refinancing a property in a qualifying census area.

Barela has eight years of lending experience. Before joining Union Bank, he served as a relationship manager and mortgage lending consultant at Citibank.

Heritage Group Expands into Los Angeles and Newport Beach

San Diego-based The Heritage Group, a commercial real estate management and advisory firm, has opened new offices in Los Angeles and Newport Beach. The company currently has offices San Francisco and San Diego, where the company is headquartered. The new offices will house The Heritage Group’s three newest team members, senior directors Craig Cooper in San Diego, Cory Guy in Newport Beach and Glenn Gilmore in Los Angeles. Cooper joins The Heritage Group San Diego office with more than 20 years of experience as a financial adviser in real estate related investment offerings.

Jacobs School of Engineering to Get New Dean

Albert P. “Al” Pisano, a mechanical engineer from UC Berkeley, will join UC San Diego as the new dean of the Jacobs School of Engineering. Pisano is a self-described “technology polyglot,” his research driven by a passon for developing, mastering and advancing technologies in order to solve problems. His appointment begins on Sept. 1. At Berkeley, Pisano served in a number of leadership positions at the department, school and campus level, including chair of the mechanical engineering department; acting dean of Berkeley’s engineering school; and the founding faculty head of the Operational Excellence program office. Pisano also served as a program manager for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a key engineering research funding agency.

Protesters Oppose the Senate’s Proposed ‘Border Surge’

Across the nation, immigration rights groups organized protests Wednesday to oppose a Senate proposal that would vastly build-up security and policing infrastructure along the U.S.-Mexico border. About 70 people gathered outside the Vista office of  Republican Congressman Darrell Issa, KPBS reports. He is a member of the House Judiciary Committee, which will play an important role whenever the House begins drafting its version of an immigration bill. The Senate bill passed last month and included a border security amendment allocating $46 million for new fencing, drones, radar systems and other technology. If signed into law, it would roughly double the size of the Border Patrol to 40,000 agents. The people who gathered outside Issa’s office on Wednesday said the so-called border surge would do irreparable damage to border communities like San Diego.