Daily Business Report-March 12, 2019
The Fifth Twenty-Five apartments are located at 5025 Collwood Blvd., less than a mile from SDSU. (Photo by Adrian Tiemens, courtesy of SDSU)
Luxury student housing project
near SDSU sells for $92.5 million
Fifty Twenty-Five, a 260-unit/942-bed, Class A luxury student housing community serving San Diego State University, has been sold for $92.5 million to Denver-based Cardinal Group Investments LLC. The seller was FPA Multifamily LLC.
Completed in 2010, Fifty Twenty-Five is a LEED Gold-certified property offering a mix of studio, two- and four-bedroom floor plans averaging 951 square feet with amenities, including flat-screen televisions, high-speed Internet, modern furnishings, full-size washers and dryers, walk-in closets and fully-equipped kitchens. The community also features a resort-style swimming pool, 24-hour fitness center, study rooms, 24-hour computer center, coffee bar, tanning bed, shuttle service and 598-space parking garage. The property is situated less than one mile from campus at 5025 Collwood Boulevard.
“SDSU currently receives more than 98,000 undergraduate and graduate applications per year and represents the third largest university in California, which creates a sustained demand for housing of this caliber,” said Hunter Combs of HFF. “The property’s amenity package is student-tailored and will continue to command top-tier rents in the marketplace.”
HFF marketed the complex on behalf of FPA Multifamily LLC, and procured the buyer.
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CONNECT appoints Silvia Mah as president
She will lead operations and business development
CONNECT announced Monday that Silvia Mah, a partner at Ad Astra Ventures, will join CONNECT as its president. Mah will begin working with CONNECT immediately in a part-time capacity and assume her new role full time as of April 1.
“San Diego has a strong history of innovation in the high tech and biotechnology sectors and CONNECT has been an integral part of this equation for over three decades,” Mah said. “I look forward to working with the CONNECT internal team and board of directors to continue its legacy with a lens of collaboration, innovation, and inclusion.”
As president, Mah will oversee the Springboard Accelerator Program, business development, and financials at CONNECT, as well as programs and operations at CONNECT ALL at the Jacobs Center. A key focus for the role will be increased collaboration within the San Diego ecosystem.
“Silvia is a respected and passionate leader in the entrepreneur community in San Diego and beyond, and her experience and commitment to innovation will be a significant asset to CONNECT,” says Tim Scott, executive chairman of CONNECT.
Mah has a deep background in fostering engagement, entrepreneurship, and partnerships across San Diego. As a leading advocate for women-owned and diverse businesses, Mah has helped more than 500 women launch or scale their startups, has created more than 180 jobs and has helped female founders raise more than $5 million.
Mah will continue as a partner at Ad Astra Ventures, a startup accelerator and venture fund that funds high growth female-led startups and accelerates their momentum, which she co-founded last year with Allison Long Pettine and Vidya Dinamani. She will move to a business advisory role at Hera Labs, where the search for a new executive director is ongoing.
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Governor joins battle over PG&E’s fate
By Dan Morain | CALmatters
Gov. Gavin Newsom said he and his team are seeking the “appropriate way of injecting ourselves” in what could become an epic battle for control of Pacific Gas & Electric Co.’s board of directors.
PG&E set today as the deadline for nominations to its board as it restructures itself in bankruptcy court in San Francisco.
PG&E’s creditors include major hedge funds that could nominate slates to sit on its board. California’s massive public employee pension funds, which hold stakes in PG&E, could assert themselves, too.
Elliott Management, a hedge fund controlled by New York billionaire and Republican donor Paul Singer, holds a major stake in PG&E, and has retained one of Sacramento’s top lobbying firms, KP Public Affairs.
Newsom, answering my questions during a Friday appearance: “Clearly, we’re concerned that one particular hedge fund is playing an outsized role and trying to influence that (process) in a way that I don’t think inures to the best interest of the public. …
“I should broaden that. I’m concerned about the interests of a few getting in the way of the interests of the many. My job is to represent the ratepayers, taxpayers, the public interest in California, not the interest of a particular hedge fund or two.”
Representatives of major creditors are not talking publicly, with one exception: Blue Mountain Capital Management, which offered a high-profile slate of 13 directors, including Phil Angelides:
Angelides, the 2006 Democratic nominee for governor, was California treasurer during PG&E’s first bankruptcy in 2001.
He chaired the U.S. Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which delved into the causes of the 2008 financial meltdown.
Newsom: “I’m not on any one side. I’m on the public side.”
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USS Carl Vinson earns 2018 Battle Efficiency ‘E’
BREMERTON, Wash. (NNS) — Nimitz-Class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson was awarded the 2018 Battle Efficiency “E” for West Coast-based aircraft carriers in an announcement released by Commander, Naval Air Forces, March 7.
Vinson’s selection for the annual honor recognizes the crew’s superior level of sustained proficiency and readiness throughout the ship’s 2018 operations.
“I’m very proud of our team,” said Capt. Matt Paradise, Carl Vinson’s commanding officer. “2018 was a busy year and we responded well by executing all of our operational commitments, inspections and training with excellence. This award reflects the entire crew’s hard work above, on and below the flight deck each day.”
Last year, USS Carl Vinson completed a three-month deployment to the Western Pacific that included a visit to Vietnam, the first visit by a U.S. aircraft carrier in more than 40 years. The ship also participated in Rim of the Pacific Exercise 2018 with more than 50 surface ships and submarines from 26 nations.
In total, Carl Vinson spent 193 days operating away from its San Diego home at the time. In January 2019, the ship moved to Bremerton, Wash., for scheduled maintenance.
“It feels great to be recognized as a ship for the hard work we did in 2018,” said Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Derrick Johnson. “We spent a lot of time away from family and friends, and winning the Battle “E” shows that we really made the most of it.”
The Battle “E” award recognizes exceptional shipboard performance during operations, inspections, certifications, assessments, and training events in a competitive cycle. A ship and its various departments must consistently demonstrate a high level of proficiency, safety awareness, operational risk management, and overall readiness in all phases of operations.
Carl Vinson is America’s third Nimitz-class aircraft carrier. The ship’s namesake is one of the longest-serving U.S. congressmen in history who had a profound impact on developing America’s modern naval force centered on aircraft carriers.
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Multi-continental partnership to usher in
next generation of economic diplomats
The University of California San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy (GPS) has partnered with three other prestigious universities in Korea, France and Canada to launch an innovative new program to train students around the globe in economic diplomacy. With tensions in the world economy rising and the rules-based trading order under scrutiny, the demand for the field of study is at an all-time high.
The program partners with the Paris School of International Affairs (Sciences Po); the Graduate School of International Studies in Seoul, Korea; and HEC Montreal–Canada’s largest management school–to offer coordinated academic year curricula, collaborative case studies and faculty exchanges. Students will receive a certificate upon completion and compete for a coveted summer internship.
No matter the continent, students begin in fall 2019 with a course on economic diplomacy, the training for which prepares them for a summer 2020 internship at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)–the influential Paris-based intergovernmental think-tank that promotes economic progress and global trade.
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New Center For Advancing Global
Business launched at SDSU
San Diego State University’s Fowler College of Business announced the creation of the Center for Advancing Global Business. The purpose: to enhance the teaching, research, and service missions of the entire university. The newly created CAGB will serve as an umbrella center and house SDSU’s Center for International Business Education and Research program and Charles W. Hostler Institute on World Affairs.
The mission of the Center for Advancing Global Business is to develop and disseminate business expertise and implement educational and outreach programs that address the challenges and opportunities of international business. The development of CAGB will allow the Center’s staff to engage in the broad initiatives that will impact students, faculty and the business community.
Overall the center activities will be aimed at impacting four broad groups of stakeholders: the University community of students and faculty; the San Diego region business community; global business practitioners and thought-leaders worldwide.
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Personnel Announcements
Dev Patel Joins Kidder Mathews
Commercial real estate broker Dev Patel has joined the San Diego office of Kidder Mathews as a senior vice president. Patel is an investment specialist with a focus on hospitality properties.
Patel has over seven years of experience in commercial real estate and has been involved in sales transactions totaling over $200 million. Before joining Kidder Mathews, he was a top producer with Mahoney & Associates in Monterey, Calif.
