Real Estate Developers

Gail Foy wouldn't want to live anyplace that looks like her old vision of a mobile-home park: "a whole bunch of these homes-on-wheels plopped on a great big lot with maybe a tree at the end." But Foy does want to own a house in the city of Santa Clarita, where she works, and she can't afford a conventional house on a private lot there.

After insisting for months that it intended to build a plush resort in the Orange County beach town of Dana Point, an Australian company said Wednesday it will instead sell its 232 prime acres overlooking the ocean. Qintex's lenders have been trying to unload its Australian television stations and resorts to recover more than $1 billion in loans. Stock analysts suggest the Dana Point land is so loaded with debt that the company won't realize much--if any--profit from the sale.

It is one choice chunk of real estate--on the water, on the Westside, close to freeways and the airport. Marina del Rey--anchored by the world's largest man-made small-craft harbor--is owned by the public and managed by Los Angeles County. The marina was conceived in the late 1950s as a money-making partnership between government and business.

The Canadians are coming--still. Orange County was a popular spot for Canadian real estate developers in the late 1970s, when the residential and commercial markets here were going wild. Several took big hits when the boom busted in the early '80s, but since the mid-'80s there has been a steady influx from the north country. Among Canadian interests doing big business in Orange County these days are Bramalea Corp. in Irvine, a residential and commercial developer, and Bentall Development Corp.

Los Angeles County has terminated developer Abraham M. Lurie's lease on the last piece of undeveloped waterfront property in Marina del Rey, ending what a top county official once described as "a great embarrassment." For almost 25 years, the county allowed the politically well-connected Lurie to maintain his grip on a prime parcel of public land without building the high-rise luxury hotel that he had promised.

So much has been said about real estate investment trusts recently, you'd think the idea was new. Many developers--including the Irvine Co.--are considering forming some sort of REIT, as they are often called, as a way to raise needed investment dollars. A REIT is a type of real estate investment in which ownership shares in real estate or mortgages are sold. Most of the income is passed on to shareholders, so is therefore not taxed at the corporate level.

Everyone knows that the housing market has gone to the dogs. So why did 500 people jam into a tent Sunday to outbid each other for 45 houses being sold in West Hills? Because the houses were sold at auction, and the minimum bids required--$275,000 to $335,000--were as much as 36% below the prices most recently asked by the builder, Raiten Enterprises.

L.A. County's ambitious light-rail network is about to push deeper into the San Gabriel Valley, and five cities along the route of the long-awaited Gold Line extension hope the trains will bring with them new development. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority will break ground Saturday on a $690 million, 11.3 mile extension of the Gold Line from Pasadena through Arcadia, Monrovia, Duarte, Irwindale and Azusa. The line is scheduled to be completed in 2014. Real estate developers and politicians are hoping the line will pave the way for some new residential and commercial developments in the cities.

The 16-acre wasteland in the heart of Anaheim's downtown had become something of an embarrassment for civic leaders. The dusty vacant lots beckoned developers, yet more than a decade passed without solid prospects for a renewal project. Now comes Koll Co. After scrutinizing the property for years, the Newport Beach-based development firm interested Pacific Bell in a new office tower on the Anaheim site.

A Los Angeles real estate developer has been indicted on charges of using more than $375,000 intended for renovation of earthquake-damaged buildings to purchase items such as a Range Rover and diamond jewelry and to pay personal debts, the U.S. attorney's office said Thursday. Thomas E. Bell, 38, president and owner of Bell Diversified Development Inc.