32 MULTIHOUSING PROFESSIONAL MARCH APRIL 2008 WWW.MULTIHOUSINGPRO.COM MHP COVER STORY Multifamily’s TKO Boxing superstar Oscar De La Hoya has vowed to hang up his gloves at the end of the year, after two scheduled title matches. But the ring and the world will not have seen the last of the feisty fighter with the crushing left hook and boyish good looks. WENDY BROFFMAN Over the past ten years, the 35-year-old Olympic gold medalist, ten-time world title holder in a record six weight classes and Grammy-nominated recording artist has been assembling a business empire known as Golden Boy Enterprises. De La Hoya brings to those ventures, which include multifamily housing, the same talent, tenacity and commitment to hard work that made him almost unbeatable in the ring. He learned to fight growing up on the streets of East L.A., the son of Mexican immigrants. “I saw my first boxing ring when I was three and began boxing at the age of six, encouraged by my father and grandfather, who also were boxers,” De La Hoya said. His talent became apparent early on. “But I also was willing to work hard, to commit much of my time and to sacrifice other things that teenagers like to do in L: OSCAR DE LA HOYA WON THE WORLD BOXING COUNCIL SUPER-WELTERWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP AT THE MGM GRAND BY TKO ON MAY 6, 2006, FLOORING RICARDO MAYORGA IN THE SIXTH ROUND WITH A LEFT-RIGHT COMBINATION AND FOLLOWING WITH AT LEAST EIGHT UNANSWERED PUNCHES. WWW.MULTIHOUSINGPRO.COM order to achieve my goal of becoming a champion. Winning a gold medal in 1992 was a dream come true and set me on a course to success in all aspects of my life. I never have given up that strong work ethic and have applied the same dedication and determination I learned in boxing to all aspects of my business and personal ven- tures,” said De La Hoya, whose professional and private lives are firing on all cylinders. In 2001, De La Hoya married Puerto Rican singer Millie Corretjer and the couple have two children, Oscar Gabriel and Nina Lauren Ninette. “Ever since I met her my life has been different. I have what I want,” said De La Hoya. But as a teenage boxing star suddenly worth millions, he was seduced by life in the wild and fast lane and duped by a shady business advisor, according to a recent press release from HarperEntertainment, an imprint of Harper Collins Publishers, which plans to publish and release De La Hoya’s autobiography in June. Today he is guided by his investment manager, Richard Schaefer, former managing director, head of the Western Region and deputy CEO for Private Banking North America at UBS, who joined team De La Hoya in 2000 and serves as CEO of Golden Boy Enterprises. And, today business is good. His holding company recently added a significant ownership interest in the Houston Dynamo soccer team and his other investments include a boxing promotional organization, newspapers and boxing magazines, and a commercial and residential real estate company aimed at the Latino market. He also owns the Golden Boy Building in Los Angeles, a 12-story office tower purchased in 2002 for $15 million that serves as headquarters for Golden Boy Enterprises and houses Golden Boy Promotions, his boxing promotion company. “I founded Golden Boy Enterprises to serve the growing Latino population in the U.S. with investments in several major-market Spanish-language newspapers, in consumer brands and technology related companies,” said De La Hoya, adding that one venture in particular is very close to his heart— Golden Boy Promotions, through which he became the first Latino to own a national promotional boxing firm and one of only a handful of boxers in history to move into the field while still boxing professionally. “I founded that company to rebuild and expand the popularity and fan base for boxing. In six years we have become one of the leading global boxing promotion companies, with 50 fighters under contract,” he said. Last year, that business generated 65 percent of all pay-per-view (PPV) event revenue in the U.S., much of it attributed to De La Hoya’s own fights. His match with Floyd Mayweather Jr. in May 2007, which ended in a 12-round split-decision loss for De La Hoya, brought in $134.4 million of domestic revenue and 1.4 million in PPV buys, making De La Hoya the all-time leader in PPV MARCH APRIL 2008 MULTIHOUSING PROFESSIONAL 33 sales and single-event revenue, outreaching the previous leader for PPV buys of $1.9 million set by the 1997 ear-bite rematch between Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson and the $112 million revenue record for a single event set by the 2002 Lennox Lewis/Tyson heavyweight title bout. The Golden Boy is scheduled to face Steve Forbes in the ring on May 3 and “GOLDEN BOY PARTNERS IS NOT JUST ABOUT REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT. IT IS ABOUT BUILDING COMMUNITIES AND CHANGING LIVES,” SAID DE LA HOYA, ADDRESSING THE CROWD AT THE GROUND-BREAKING FOR TIERRA DEL REY, HIS COMPANY’S FIRST WORKFORCE HOUSING PROJECT IN LOS ANGELES' SOUTH GATE SUBMARKET. 34 MULTIHOUSING PROFESSIONAL Mayweather again in September for the WBC welterweight championship. That bout could be his last, although there is talk of another match being planned for December. As of press time, the exact date of the De La Hoya/Mayweather rematch had not been finalized. What does De La Hoya think about when he laces up his gloves and steps into the boxing ring? “The excitement of the sport. The challenge of a strategy for each round. The cheer of the crowd when I land a good punch,” he told MHP last month. And, while he will miss stepping into the ring and the excitement that goes with it, MARCH APRIL 2008 he stated, “I am not retiring from boxing. I will continue to be active through Golden Boy Enterprises and expect to be promoting the biggest fights you will hear about. We have brought new energy and new ideas to boxing promotion and I look forward to taking it to even higher levels.” He also plans to concentrate fully on his various business interests. “Certainly I intend to spend more time on real estate development, because it is a field I love,” he said. Ring to real estate arena De La Hoya’s interest in real estate sparked as he traveled the country in his boxing career and was struck by the need for improving the quality of life in urban Latino communities. “I realized that real estate was the one area where I could make the most impact for my community. Real estate can change the entire complexion of a community; it can build a sense of pride that you don’t get through any other economic development. The opportunity to own a home or a business fosters a sense of ownership in one’s neighborhood and community that leads to increased safety, reduced crime, higher property values and greater self and family esteem,” he said. His investment manager, Richard Schaefer, introduced De La Hoya to Highridge Partners CEO John S. Long, who has acquired, developed or financed more than $6 billion of real estate in California, Arizona, Nevada and Texas and is active in the United States, Europe and China. Long and De La Hoya formed Golden Boy Partners in 2005 with a shared $100 million investment. “Schaefer realized that we both shared deep common values and commitment to invest in and revitalize urban, Latino-based communities. Both of us grew up in the inner city of Los Angeles. Both of us wanted to return to our roots and apply our experiences to create opportunities for others growing up today in the inner city,” said Long, who left China as a child after the Communists took over his family’s grocery stores. He arrived in the U.S. in 1954 and grew up in South Central Los Angeles. Long received a degree in economics from UCLA before applying to Harvard, where he obtained his MBA. “I wanted the finest business education available and knew it would open doors for relationships and contacts throughout my business career. I went into real estate because I saw it was mostly a seatof-the-pants industry and I felt I could bring discipline and economic underpinnings that would give me an edge in the industry. Plus, being an entrepreneur was in my DNA and WWW.MULTIHOUSINGPRO.COM MHP COVER STORY real estate is the ultimate entrepreneurial business. I would say that drive and determination to win are at the core of how Oscar and I approach our businesses and what makes us successful,” said Long. He worked for KB Homes from 1971 to 1978, when he launched Highridge Partners. De La Hoya believes that real estate is in his blood, as well. “I always have believed that success is 99 percent preparation and I find that is true whether you are getting into the ring or into the real estate business. Real estate is a lot like boxing in that you have to invest a lot of time and money before you are ready to step into the ring. Instead of training for several months, however, it can be several years before you find the right site, acquire it, decide on the right project for the community, design it and cost it, and secure all the government approvals you need to build,” he said. With upheaval in the credit markets, those hurdles are even more pronounced. “Every aspect of development is under tremendous pressure in today’s financial meltdown environment. We, fortunately, are equipped to deal with these conditions, and Highridge Partners’ trademark over the last three decades is to expand when adverse conditions give rise to unusual opportunities,” said Long, who is considered contrarian by many of his peers. But one off-and-on-again transaction that has received a lot of media attention illustrates the difficulty of getting any deal to pencil-in when the market is changing rapidly. One mark of experience is the knowledge of when to proceed and when to pull back. Last July, Golden Boy agreed to purchase a 23-acre site in East Los Angeles’ Boyle Heights submarket for more than $70 million from MJW Investments, Inc. The industrial site houses a 1.8 million sq. ft. complex with a Sears retail store that De La Hoya frequented as a child and a longclosed Sears warehouse facility. Zoning and entitlement changes would be necessary for Golden Boy to realize its plans for a mixeduse project with housing and retail. Several previous attempts by other developers to redevelop the difficult site had failed and Golden Boy has put that deal on hold. “Sadly, the deal is now off indefinitely. We invested an enormous amount of time, money and caring to get our vision for the Sears site off the ground. However, the complexities of the site and an uncertain economy make the project economics increasingly unviable. We hope that we may have the opportunity to revisit the project at a later date because we continue to believe it has great potential as a source of new revenue to WWW.MULTIHOUSINGPRO.COM the city and as a catalyst to revitalize Boyle Heights, provide the community with services it so dearly needs and deserves and upgrade infrastructure that has been ignored for decades,” Long said, adding, “Stay tuned.” Meanwhile, Golden Boy has seven projects under development totaling more than $100 million, four of which are multifamily for-sale. “We are focused on two primary objectives—residential and retail—but will incorporate office and other commercial as appropriate. As real estate professionals, we have to respond to the demand in the market in order for these projects to be financially feasible. The current demand is strongest for retail and residential in most of the markets we target. In some urban centers we could see more office demand and will incorporate that product if it fits. In rough percentages, approximately 50 percent of our projects are residential or mixeduse and 50 percent are retail or commercial,” said Long. He believes that affordable workforce housing for the Latino population in inner city locations, both for-sale and rental, is the market segment that is most underserved, even though the Latino demographic is the fastest growing in the nation. “By 2020, it is anticipated that Latinos will make up more than 50 percent of all residents in Los Angeles County,” said De La Hoya. He agrees with Long that Golden Boy can best serve this demographic and remain profitable by building market-rate housing without government subsidies, because those subsidies come with restrictions. “There are lots of companies that are already working on subsidized housing. We are more interested in focusing on the more difficult challenge of creating the opportunity for homeownership in these markets at prices that people who already live there can afford. Ownership is what creates pride in a neighborhood and is fundamental to really changing these neighborhoods for the better. We will work with subsidies, but not at the expense of allowing real ownership. Owning your own home is the beginning of creating so many good things in a person’s life and we are committed to making that happen in these neighborhoods. Further, we are finding a huge demand for workforce housing. Our most common conversation with staff and elected officials in cities that we are working with is about their concern that there are too few workforce housing opportunities,” said Long. “We feel that there is a very deep market in our niche focus, a burgeoning market that is almost completely overlooked by mainstream developers and institutional investors,” said De La Hoya. “This demographic and geographic are often overlooked because they are more challenging and require a different skill set as opposed to greenfield development. Often the projects are smaller and require more time, two items that turn off a large segment of experienced developers. It defi- nitely requires more creativity and a willingness to consider a project in which it is not immediately obvious that many of the obstacles you are faced with can be solved and be financially viable. “Highridge Partners has a background and extensive experience in very challenging deals and we enjoy and are enlivened by such challenges and we have been very successful at it. We have assembled teams of very talented people who are experts in each of the disciplines needed to solve these problems and coupled them with our guidance and reputation as savvy investors to attract the capital needed to develop in these markets. Very few real estate investors have the desire to work this hard,” Long said. Another area of interest to Golden Boy, and one in which its principals believe they have an edge, is in providing capital for new and existing businesses that will foster creation of jobs and services within the Latino community. Institutional investors and other capital sources have been looking at emerging domestic markets for the past decade, but, as noted by Betsy Zeidman, director of the Center for Emerging Domestic Markets at the Milken Institute, reaching these underserved markets is a specialized process that requires an in-depth understanding of the market and the ability to break through informational and transactional cost barriers. Today, Latinos and African Americans are turned down for business loans at three times the rate of whites with equivalent credit characteristics. “We expect to support business formation in a couple of our upcoming projects that will lend themselves to a greater mix of residential, retail and office. Just like real estate, we have found that great businesses can be found in inner city areas. Sometimes all they lack is the right source of capital and the right partner. “Even in today’s turbulent market, we continue to believe that those well-capitalized organizations with a deep management bench and the ability to be very agile will lead the recovery, generate significant riskadjusted profits for partners and capital providers and enhance the very communities that are underserved. Golden Boy Partners is poised to be that type of leader,” said Long. . BOXER OSCAR DE LA HOYA LAUGHS AS HE AUTOGRAPHS A FAN’S OVERSIZED BOXING GLOVE AFTER A NEWS CONFERENCE AT THE MGM GRAND HOTEL/CASINO AS PART OF A MEDIA TOUR ANNOUNCING HIS FIGHT WITH FLOYD MAYWEATHER JR. FEBRUARY 27, 2007 IN LAS VEGAS, NEVADA. DE LA HOYA AND MAYWEATHER FOUGHT FOR THE JUNIOR MIDDLEWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP MAY 5, 2007, AT THE MGM. (PHOTO BY ETHAN MILLER/GETTY IMAGES) 36 MULTIHOUSING PROFESSIONAL MARCH APRIL 2008 WWW.MULTIHOUSINGPRO.COM 38 MULTIHOUSING PROFESSIONAL MARCH APRIL 2008 WWW.MULTIHOUSINGPRO.COM MHP COVER STORY A punch list of a different kind On February 19, ground was broken on the five-acre site for the 107-unit Tierra Del Rey, the first housing development to rise in the predominantly Latino Los Angeles submarket of South Gate in almost 20 years. It was a big event to celebrate such a small condo project, broadcast by both the ABC and NBC networks. The reason for all the media attention was that Oscar De La Hoya—L.A.’s own Golden Boy of boxing—was there to turn first dirt. WWW.MULTIHOUSINGPRO.COM MARCH APRIL 2008 MULTIHOUSING PROFESSIONAL 39 Tierra Del Rey is the initial development for Metro Housing Partners, a privately held company founded last summer by Golden Boy Partners, a partnership of De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Enterprises and John Long’s Highridge Partners, Trimark Partners LLC, an arm of California homebuilder Trimark Pacific, and CarVal Investors, an affiliate of agribusiness giant Cargill, Inc. that has overseen 2,900 transactions in 41 countries and today manages $15 billion in managed assets. WENDY BROFFMAN The partners recruited Lawrence Scott from AvalonBay Communities last July to serve as president and oversee Metro Housing Partner’s development, construction, sales and marketing efforts throughout California. The following month, Scott brought aboard Walter Johnson, formerly of Lennar Urban, as development director. Joining De La Hoya for the groundbreaking were Scott, Long, Trimark Partners President Clinton “Randy” Stevenson and South Gate’s Mayor Bill De Witt. South Gate, a city of approximately 100,000 residents, is located 12 miles southL: OSCAR DE LA HOYA AND SOUTH GATE MAYOR BILL DE WITT TOOK THE LEAD BY OPERATING A GIANT EXCAVATOR TO INITIATE THE SITE GRADING PROCESS FOR TIERRA DEL REY, THE FIRST LARGESCALE PLANNED HOUSING COMMUNITY IN THE CITY SINCE 1990. 40 MULTIHOUSING PROFESSIONAL east of downtown Los Angeles. “Hispanics have immigrated into the area and there is a lot of private ownership and pride of ownership and a great sense of history. Tierra Del Rey’s message, as stated on the Website, is: revitalize, reconnect, renew, relive, rebuild. It’s all about coming back to where you grew up and being able to buy back in. Our goal is to provide new housing for current residents of South Gate and to offer an opportunity for young people to purchase homes near their families and become residents of the community where they grew up,” said Scott. Scott expects all-in costs for the marketrate project to run approximately $325,000 per home. But with initial price points starting in the mid-$300,000 range, well below the $475,000 median price of a home in Los Angeles County, the three-story gated townhouse development with in-line MARCH APRIL 2008 garages will introduce new affordably priced housing to an area dominated by single-family homes built as workforce housing for the nearby Firestone plant from the 1930s through the late 1940s. Sales of the condos that were designed by Withee Malcolm Architects of Torrance, Calif., will commence in July with delivery of first homes in March 2009. Metro Housing conducted a focus group with a Hispanic buyer profile to understand what the project’s target buyers would look for in everything from upgrades to financing to how South Gate compared to other submarkets in Los Angeles. “We found that the Hispanic buyer wants a nice level of finish. They value the technology of new buildings, the pre-wiring for surround sound and flat screen television, but they also are cost conscious. If the price point for the upgrades is too high, they will wait and do it themselves. So we focused on those areas of highest impact,” said Scott. The townhomes feature walk-in closets, master baths with dual sinks and garden tubs, interior laundry rooms and in-home security systems. Buyers have the choice of three levels of packaged upgrades professionally coordinated by Metro Housing’s interior designers. Feedback also showed that Latinos value a single-family home with a backyard. The only private outdoor spaces at Tierra Del Rey are balconies and there is no swimming pool—an amenity found to be not that important to those in the focus group—but the project includes two outdoor pocket parks with barbeques, park benches and large canvas sun shelters. “These are safe places for families to gather and kids to run and play,” said Scott. Another desired feature of the focus group WWW.MULTIHOUSINGPRO.COM MHP COVER STORY LEFT TO RIGHT: JOHN S. LONG, CEO OF HIGHRIDGE PARTNERS AND PARTNER AND CO-FOUNDER OF GOLDEN BOY PARTNERS; METRO HOUSING PARTNERS PRESIDENT LAWRENCE SCOTT; RICHARD SCHAEFER, DE LA HOYA’S INVESTMENT MANAGER AND CEO OF GOLDEN BOY ENTERPRISES. was a spacious living room and additional bedrooms. “One important item we provide in our townhomes is some type of living space on the ground floor, because we expect many of our buyers will have extended family,” said Scott. Two of the three floor plans have a downstairs den or bedroom. The second floor is the main floor, and consists of the living room, kitchen and dining room. “Our biggest challenge was to create the desired living space taking into account the 1,400 sq. ft. average size of the townhomes,” Scott said, revealing some interesting facts that surprised him about the existing housing stock in South Gate. “The average homes here were built in 1948 and the average size is 1,230 sq. ft. You’d typically think of a townhome as being a move-down from a single-family house, but our average townhome is larger than the average house in the area,” he said. Already at a good price point to offer unmodified HUD conforming to Tierra Del Rey buyers, Metro Housing is taking the necessary steps to qualify the property for the FHA conforming program, which is raising its limits to the low $600,000s. “The great American dream of owning a home is one that is shared very deeply by Latinos. Studies show that Latinos are expected to make up 40 percent of the firsttime homebuyers over the next 20 years. In today’s challenging lending environment, we are planning to provide the broadest spectrum of lending products available, including qualifying our communities for FHA, CalFHA and VA approved programs, and are working with lenders, the counties and municipalities to obtain access to grant funds and “soft second” programs for our prospective buyers. The modification of these program’s lending limits will further assist our buyers in obtaining financing across a broader spectrum,” said Scott. Going the rounds The first round of Metro Housing’s multifamily real estate developments will be in the Golden State’s Southland, where Latino neighborhoods are older and need updating with new housing and retail. “But Golden Boy Partners has ambitious long-term goals and we hope to have affordable, urban housing and mixed-use communities underway in several states by the end of the decade. Metro Housing Partners is our development partner to build and market the housing. In addition, we have two other partners responsible for the retail development,” said De La Hoya, referring to affiliates Manarino Realty in California, and Balcones Realty Partners in Dallas, which was formed around 12 months ago. THE REY GATED TOWNHOME COMMUNITY OF TIERRA DEL WILL INTRODUCE A NEW WORKFORCE HOUSING PRODUCT TYPE TO THE PRIMARILY LATINO NEIGHBORHOOD OF SOUTH GATE, WHICH CURRENTLY IS DOMINATED BY BUNGALOW-STYLE SINGLE-FAMILY HOMES BUILT IN THE 1930S AND 1940S. Balcones is close to finalizing the 37-acre site plan for a $90 million Spanish missionstyled mixed-use retail and restaurant center called West Love Market near Dallas’ Love Field that is expected to come online in Fall 2009. Meanwhile, Balcones Managing Director Jorge Ramirez is in negotiations for two additional redevelopment parcels. The entitlements for Tierra Del Rey were completed by Pablo Leon, president of Golden Pacific Partners, a wholly owned subsidiary of Golden Boy Partners that focuses on urban infill in the Los Angeles area for commercial and residential developA RENDERING OF A PORTION OF WEST LOVE MARKET, THE RETAIL AND RESTAURANT CENTER BY GOLDEN BOY PARTNERS AFFILIATE BALCONES REALTY PARTNERS, THE PROJECT IS POISED TO BREAK GROUND THIS MONTH NEAR LOVE FIELD IN DALLAS. 42 MULTIHOUSING PROFESSIONAL ment. The eight-acre site for Tierra Del Rey housed two industrial buildings. One was torn down to make way for the condos and the other is being converted by Golden Boy to a mini-storage facility that will be added to the company’s portfolio of like properties. “Our research has shown that there is significant demand for self-storage in inner city neighborhoods. Most self-storage is available in suburban, or far-out, areas not convenient for urban residents,” said De La Hoya. Housing from both sides Metro Housing Partners also has an ambitious business plan, which includes the right of first look at all land acquired by Golden Boy that is earmarked for multifamily. “But we also will do our own land acquisition,” said Scott, referring to Metro’s goal to deliver 500 to 700 units per year, divided equally between for-sale and rental housing. The company is mostly scouting infill industrial distribution sites and old office buildings and currently is under contract on a site for condos, in the design and entitlement phase on three additional for-sale projects and is looking at a number of parcels for apartments. “Our goal for the company is to create a MARCH APRIL 2008 residential housing provider that can do both rental and for-sale and there are very few companies that can. Being private, we don’t have to contend with the confusion—or concern of confusion—of the Wall Street analysts. It’s almost impossible for a public company to be both a homebuilder and an apartment company. The analysts just don’t know which category to put them in,” said Scott. The majority of Metro’s for-sale housing will be workforce townhomes in Latino inner city neighborhoods. “Workforce forsale will continue to have strong demand. It’s a great niche, but not so for rental. Although there is an absolute need for workforce apartments, the cost to build them is prohibitive,” said Scott. For that reason, the company will look for opportunities to build and hold luxury apartments in Los Angeles, Orange and even San Diego Counties, but likely will outsource the property management. “We will, however, be our own general contractor and an extension of our business plan is to conduct thirdparty GC work for residential developers that don’t have their own in-house capabilities. We’re augmenting our construction team right now,” Scott said. Metro Housing also has the ability to look outside the company fold for joint venture and equity partners. Golden Boy and Trimark are equal partners in Metro and to that extent will be invested in all the company’s projects. They also control Strategic Investment Partners, a firm that was formed last year to buy troubled loans and assemble REO foreclosed land until the market turns. For Trimark Partners, the ventures couldn’t have come together at a better time. Trimark Pacific’s California-based homebuilding business slowed considerably when last summer’s mortgage mess hit the fan. “I’m very excited about the partnership and it’s potential,” said Randy Stevenson “It’s a partnership of companies and individuals that I respect and I think our skills are complementary. I’m looking forward to a beneficial relationship,” he said. . WWW.MULTIHOUSINGPRO.COM
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