Real Estate Developers

To hundreds of people, the investment apparently looked like a straight-ahead fairway shot to the green. For $25,000 or more, investors were told they could own part of a company developing luxury resorts and residences, authorities say. One supposed project was next to an Arnold Palmer-designed golf course. At another resort, Greg Norman's company had been hired to design the course.

Bill Witte is accustomed to dealing with large egos and massive city bureaucracies. He cut his teeth overseeing public housing projects for the mayors of Philadelphia and San Francisco. Such experience is coming in handy in Witte's current gig: handling the large egos and city bureaucracy of Los Angeles. Witte is point man for one of Southern California's largest and most high-profile real estate developments: the planned $1.8-billion Grand Avenue project on Bunker Hill in downtown Los Angeles.

The planned sale of a major redevelopment project in Boyle Heights is raising concerns that the affordable housing and retail outlets that the area needs may be delayed. Santa Monica-based real estate firm MJW Investments is expected to formally announce today that it is soliciting proposals from buyers to purchase its 23-acre site at Olympic Boulevard and Soto Street. The site, home of a long-shuttered Sears, Roebuck & Co.

Fidelity National Financial Inc. and First American Corp., the nation's No. 1 and No. 2 title insurers, will each pay a $2-million fine and cut their rates to settle New York Atty. Gen. Eliot Spitzer's allegations that they made improper payments to real estate developers. The insurers drove up rates for homeowners by providing developers free or discounted insurance in other states in exchange for client referrals in New York, Spitzer said in a statement Tuesday.

The man whose family real estate empire has spent nearly $12 million promoting the political career of gubernatorial hopeful Phil Angelides has a direct stake in matters before California's chief of state, including restraints on building new suburbs on cropland and vacant hillsides. The builder, Angelo K. Tsakopoulos, owns vast tracts of land in the Central Valley and Sierra foothills that are ripe for home construction.

In a significant victory for Westside slow-growth forces, a developer has scrapped plans to tear down the aging Santa Monica Place mall and replace it with a 10-acre complex of high-rise condos, shops and offices that critics said would overwhelm the city's downtown.

A top Los Angeles building official has barred developer Richard Meruelo from construction on vacant land near Union Station for five years as punishment for tearing down aging industrial structures without demolition permits. Raymond Chan, executive officer of the city's Department of Building and Safety, imposed the penalty after agreeing with a hearing officer's finding that the four structures were demolished last year without the required permits.

Air quality regulators issued a violation notice to a prominent Santa Ana developer Friday, after tests showed improper removal of cancer-causing asbestos during the demolition of a church being replaced by a controversial 37-story office building. Officials from the South Coast Air Quality Management District took samples from the Santa Ana site after three residents complained to the agency about what they thought were improper demolition practices.

Geoff Palmer, the urban trailblazer who helped inspire an upscale housing boom in downtown Los Angeles' long-neglected core, has acquired a 9.5-acre parcel downtown from Orthopaedic Hospital for $70.5 million, hospital officials said Tuesday. Palmer is expected to build more than 800 luxury apartments on the former hospital property on Flower Street between Staples Center and USC.

The developer of the property surrounding the Orange County Great Park wants to cut back on businesses and nearly triple the number of homes while adding 400 acres to the park site. Emile Haddad, chief investment officer for builder Lennar Corp., said that since the original park plan was developed, the need for housing had become greater in a county where the median home price is more than $600,000.