Daily Business Report-April 14, 2017
Atmosphere includes 154 units of affordable housing for families earning between 30 and 60 percent of the San Diego Area Median Income.
Downtown’s Newest Affordable
Housing Complex Gets First Tenants
Tenants have begun moving into Atmosphere, the $79 million, 12-story apartment building in Downtown’s Cortez Hill neighborhood developed by Wakeland Housing and Development Corp.
The building, touted as an affordable complex by the developer, also includes a rooftop terrace and three levels of underground parking. Wakeland will host a grand opening celebration for Atmosphere on Wednesday, May 31, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Xpera CM, a San Diego-based construction management consulting firm, provided project management services on the project for Wakeland.
Atmosphere includes 154 units of affordable housing for families earning between 30 and 60 percent of the San Diego Area Median Income (AMI), plus 51 units of permanent supportive housing specifically for adults requiring additional support due to homelessness, mental disability or age.
Xpera CM began working with Wakeland on Atmosphere in May 2015. Its services included pre-construction design management, budgeting and cost management, entitlement and permitting through the city of San Diego, and contractor and project team selection. The project team included Xpera CM (construction manager), Suffolk Construction (general contractor), Joseph Wong Design Associates (architect) and Latitude 33 Planning & Engineering.
Atmosphere was funded through both 9 percent and 4 percent tax credits. It is the latest affordable housing project that Xpera CM has completed for Wakeland. Others completed in 2016 include the new mixed-use Lofts on Landis community in Chula Vista and Home Front at Camp Anza, a new construction/historic rehabilitation project located at the former site of a WWII U.S. Army training camp in Riverside.
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USD Real Estate Students Win ARGUS
University Challenge for Fourth Year in a Row
A team of Master’s in Real Estate students from the University of San Diego School of Business and the Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate has successfully defended its title in the 2017 ARGUS University Challenge.
The victory makes the fourth, first place win in a row for USD. In the eight years the competition has been held, the School of Business team has taken first-place on six occasions and second-place on two occasions.
The 2017 team of Adam Goff , Marina Koelbl, Nick Kolbe, Erik Luedtke and Karamarie White was led by faculty adviser Charles Tu, the Daniel F. Mulvihill Professor of Commercial Real Estate.
The 2017 ARGUS University Challenge focused on three sub-par retail centers in three cities on the verge of potential economic expansion. The property owner tasked teams with determining the best course of action for each property: sell, re-finance the existing debt and continue to hold, or upgrade through capital improvements and continue to hold. Based on thorough market research, consultations with industry professionals and knowledge gained from the classroom, Team USD concluded that performing capital improvements and continuing to hold maximized the value of each property. However, Team USD went beyond what was required and recommended a fourth option: upgrade each property through capital improvements and sell in the near future.
“Our team appreciates the opportunity to participate in the ARGUS University Challenge,” said White. “Throughout the six weeks working on the report, we expanded our market research abilities and ARGUS modeling knowledge. These fine-tuned skills, accompanied by a positive group experience, will prove to be invaluable throughout our careers.”
This year, the team competed against 38 top universities from countries around the world for cash prizes totaling $22,000. The USD team’s 2017 ARGUS trophy will be showcased at the Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate. The team also received $12,000 for its work.
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San Diego’s $1.4B Budget Seen as Solid Compromise
Mayor Kevin Faulconer unveiled a budget that maintains San Diego’s recent focus on street repair and neighborhood services while eliminating 60 jobs to help close a projected $81 million deficit. It also calls for cutting arts funding by a third. San Diego Union-Tribune
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Chinese Tea Tasting Adventure
at the San Diego Chinese Historical Museum
The San Diego Chinese Historical Museum has partnered with Adventures by the Book for a Chinese Tea Tasting Adventure with New York Times bestselling author Lisa See. She will make a return visit to the museum, the place that inspired her to write her latest novel, “The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane,” which tells the story of a Chinese mother and her daughter separated by circumstances, culture, and distance.
The book signing with a special Chinese tea ceremony will take place on Tuesday, April 18, from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Chuang Archive & Learning Center in Downtown San Diego. Tickets can be purchased on Adventures by the Book’s website (www.adventuresbythebook.com). The ticket includes a hardcover copy of Lisa See’s newest book. Acomplimentary tour of the museum will be from 6:15 to 6:45 p.m.
In Lisa See’s latest novel, she shares the customs of a Chinese ethnic minority, the Akha, whose world has revolved around the ritual and routine of tea farming for generations, and how it will soon change. Over appetizers and a tasting of traditional Chinese teas with Tranquil Tuesdays, Lisa See will recreate the adventure that inspired her latest novel and explain how she crafted “The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane,” interweaving the classical culture of tea into the heart of her novel and her characters’ destinies.
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Landscape Architects Team with Canyonlands
to Blaze New Trails in City Heights Canyons
San Diego Canyonlands (SDCL) has tapped into the expertise of KTUA Landscape Architecture and Planning to design and plan new trails and reroute others in City Heights.
When completed, this five-mile loop system will connect the urban streetscape with the surrounding natural landscape in Hollywood, Manzanita, 47th Street, and Swan Canyons, creating a nature-park amenity that will serve the local residents and youth for hiking, jogging, biking, and use as a nature classroom.
“In addition to providing access to lovely nature trails, this project provides safe access from the top of the canyon slopes to existing trails in the bottom of the canyons, thus creating convenient links for pedestrians and bicyclists to schools, transit, other neighborhoods and activity centers,” said Eric Bowlby, Executive Director of SDCL.
And it’s a project that calls for the expertise of landscape architects. “So we went to trail-design and planning experts John Holloway and Mark Carpenter, both Principals, at KTUA for help,” explained Bowlby.
Since 2009, Holloway, Carpenter, Bowlby, biologists, rangers, and planners have been working together on this urban nature-trail system that was envisioned by the community over a decade ago.
“The overall project includes habitat restoration in these four degraded canyons, increasing infiltration of polluted urban runoff and reducing pollutants as waters flow through the canyons down to our beaches,” said Bowlby.
Under Holloway’s leadership, KTUA landscape architects created trail designs through construction drawings and committed to keeping an eye on the project over the next 20 years, including linking up to other trails in the future.
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Things to do This Weekend
April 15-16
Red Bull Air Race World Championship
The Red Bull Air Race World Championship makes a welcome return to San Diego. Set on the coast of San Diego, the location provides the perfect backdrop for a race. San Diego last hosted a Red Bull Air Race back in 2009 and proved extremely popular with the fans that have often asked when the Air Race would return, well 2017 is the answer.
