|
The principals of Lee Homes, Inc. are in their sixth decade as one of the premier real estate development companies in Southern California and together have over 150 years of combined experience. Presently, Lee Homes is building approx. 1,700 units priced from $180,000 to $1.9 million. These products range from entry-level single family homes for low and moderate income families to loft condominiums, mixed-use and luxury estates. In total, these developments represent close to $1 billion in housing projects currently in development.
Lee Homes, Inc. is a leader in the development of public/private ventures with redevelopment agencies and community development departments. The company has completed over 1,719 homes with a value of over $570 million over the last 12 years. Several cities, including the City of Cerritos and City of Signal Hill, have chosen Lee Homes, Inc. and its development team to develop the first significant residential redevelopment project in their city.
In the last 2 years Lee Homes, Inc. has completed approx. 386 units including 102 homes at Vista del Rio in Bell Gardens/Commerce; 34 homes in the Willowbrook area of Los Angeles County; 35 homes in the City of El Monte; 34 homes in the City of Rolling Hills Estates; 23 homes in Hollywood; 16 Live/Work lofts in Venice; 51 homes in the master planned community of Playa Vista in West Los Angeles, 91 Live/Work loft condominiums adjacent to the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles; and six custom homes in the Marina Del Rey/Venice area. In addition, Lee Homes, Inc. has recently completed a 74,000 square foot creative office campus, the Royal Laundry in Pasadena, which is an adaptive reuse of three historic buildings, including a new parking structure.
Currently, the firm has approx. 774 units under construction including: 31 homes in Playa Vista; 44 homes in Woodland Hills; 25 homes in Santa Barbara; 93 homes in East Los Angeles; 66 Live/Work lofts at 11th & Grand in Downtown L.A.; 132 Live/Work lofts at 8th & Grand in Downtown L.A.; 267 Live/Work lofts with 56,000 square-feet of retail (including a Ralph’s Supermarket, Coldstone Creamery, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, etc.) at 9th & Flower in Downtown L.A.; and 116 Live/Work units and 20,000 square feet of retail in San Pedro.
Additionally, over 954 homes and lofts are in various stages of predevelopment with construction commencement dates in 2005 including: 140 single family homes and 150 attached condominiums at Marlton Square in the Crenshaw area of Los Angeles as part of the City of Los Angeles’ major redevelopment of the former Santa Barbara Plaza site (including 119,000 of retail and 180 senior, affordable apartments developed by others); 105 Live/Work lofts at 11th & Olive in Downtown L.A.; 16 homes at Playa Vista; 135 Live/Work units and 10,000 square feet of retail in the City of Anaheim; 30 single family homes in Hillside Village in East Los Angeles; 44 single family homes in Watts; 211 single family homes in the City of Hawthorne; and 72 Live/Work units and 51 Townhomes with 6,000 square feet of commercial/retail in Marina del Rey.
Sandy Goodkin, former Executive Director of the Goodkin Real Estate Consulting Group of KPMG Peat Marwick, sums up Lee Homes Inc. best when he says, “The principals of Lee Homes have always shown great vision, social consciousness, and a magnificent sense of taste.”
In 1990, the principals of Lee Homes, Inc. received the home building industry’s most prestigious award when it won the 1990 Builder Magazine Project of the Year (of 700 applicants) from the National Association of Home Builders for the 176-unit Crossroads development in the City of Inglewood.
In 1998, Lee Homes, Inc. was selected by the White House Office of Science Technology Policy to participate in a new housing initiative by then President Clinton named PATH – Partnership for Advancing Technology in Housing. In partnership with PATH, Lee Homes, Inc. redesigned its development The Village Green – 77 new single-family detached homes adjacent to the Sylmar/San Fernando Metrolink Station and childcare center – to be some of the most energy efficient new homes in the United States. This redesign helped to reduce the utility bills for the homeowners by as much as 50-70 percent through installation of photovoltaic systems that provide solar electricity for as much as 90 percent of the homes’ electrical needs.
On May 4, 1998, former President Clinton attended the ground breaking for Village Green to announce the national kickoff for the PATH program and designate Village Green as the first national PATH pilot site. The Village Green has since been hailed by environmental groups including The Sierra Club and the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) as a model of sustainable development in the NRDC’s Solving Sprawl publication.
Lee Homes’s philosophy is very simple — “to build innovative urban infill developments which are sensitive to the environment and close to family, work and friends.” This philosophy has kept the principals of the company — whether building luxury estates, entry-level homes, urban lofts, and mixed-use developments — on the cutting edge of the industry throughout the past 50 years. Lee Homes, Inc. philosophy carries over into forming partnerships with both for-profit and non-profit entities in order to complete the most appropriate and successful partnerships possible.
This philosophy has put Lee Homes, Inc. at the forefront of the burgeoning “Smart Growth” movement by local, state and federal officials. California State Treasurer Phil Angelides lauded Village Green as a model Smart Growth development in his Smart Investment Report, a guide for investing the billions of dollars of public funds by the State of California. He has since given critical praise to Lee Homes’s continuing commitment to building in the urban core of Los Angeles.
In the 1960’s, Harlan Lee’s companies helped to define Southern California residential development as one of the first builders to develop in the master-planned communities of Westlake Village, Mission Viejo, Janss Conejo, Via Verde and Calabasas Park. In the late 60’s, Harlan Lee was the first developer to introduce the concept of the “patio home”, now a classic in the Southern California market. In the 70’s, the firm distinguished itself with outstanding single-family homes in Palm Springs and a second generation of homes in Calabasas Park with Eastridge and Park Vicente.
In the early 1970's, Harlan Lee & Associates was a wholly owned subsidiary of Leisure Technologies, one of the largest developers of senior housing in the United States. Under the guidance of Harlan Lee, the master-planned community of Leisure Village in Camarillo was one of the most recognized and successful senior communities in Southern California.
In the 1980’s Harlan Lee, along with the firm’s principals Jeff Lee, Calvin Sweet, and Michael Adler, continued the tradition of innovative housing with Creekside located in both the City and County of Los Angeles, a combination of single family and duplex homes surrounded by a creek. The creek, which ran through both the City and the County, was lined with crib walls and revegetated with over 500 trees. Today no one would know any work was ever done in the creek. In 1987, the Westridge development received unprecedented accolades from the development community when all four floor plans were the only ones nominated for the prestigious Pacific Coast Builders Conference Grand Nugget Award for the Best Detached Home of the Year. These homes won over 30 local, regional and national design awards in the late 80’s.
The principals of Lee Homes, Inc. diversified in the mid-1980’s into urban infill with Crossroads in the City of Inglewood, and the Venice Renaissance in the City of Los Angeles. Without sacrificing aesthetics or economics, these two infill developments created new solutions to the problems of affordable ownership as well as senior and disabled rental in a slow-growth environment. Both Crossroads, a 176-unit condominium development in Inglewood’s Manchester/Prairie Redevelopment area, and Venice Renaissance, a mixed-use development on Main Street at the border of Venice and Santa Monica, have been hailed as models that helped define the current urban redevelopment trends of both Los Angeles and the Southern California region.
Lee Homes, Inc. thrives on difficult sites requiring unique solutions to complex problems. Harlan Lee, founder of the firm, summarizes its ongoing success, “From floor plans to landscaping, we put a tremendous emphasis on determining what best suits the buyers living in our communities as well as the surrounding neighbors. We’ve been successful in master-planned communities and now urban infill development. We also excel in providing a custom feel in each of our homes from an entry-level condominium to a million dollar estate. The bottom line is Lee Homes provides a better lifestyle for people.”
In the 1990’s, Lee Homes, Inc. continued to concentrate its development efforts in affordable for-sale single-family housing in both growing communities, such as Cathedral City where Lee Homes, Inc. used innovative steel framing, and urban infill areas including the cities of Garden Grove, Azusa, Lynwood, Culver City, Cerritos, Los Angeles, Bell Gardens/Commerce, Signal Hill, Huntington Park and areas throughout Southern California. The cities of Signal Hill and Cerritos chose Lee Homes, Inc. to develop their first residential redevelopment projects in their cities because of the firm’s innovative designs and high-quality homes.
In the 2000’s, Lee Homes, Inc. has expanded its focus on urban for-sale housing to include adaptive reuse developments as well as live/work lofts and mixed-use developments which are quickly gaining momentum as a preferred housing prototype in urban areas. Presently, Lee Homes, Inc. has over $526 million in single-family homes, and commercial space either under construction or in predevelopment in Southern California.
In collaboration with architects such as Van Tilburg, Banvard and Soderbergh, AIA; Arquitectonica, Inc.; Killefer Flammang Architects; MACK Architect(s), KTGY Architects, and RTKL; Lee Homes, Inc. is working on innovative urban housing designs at densities ranging from 8 to 130 units per acre. These new concepts enable Lee Homes, Inc. to turn marginal retail, residential and industrial sites into detached and/or attached developments. Many of these developments involve redevelopment agency financial assistance in the form of land write-downs, fee waivers, silent seconds, and Mortgage Credit Certificates.
The firm is also focusing on selected urban infill sites for move-up and high end housing in markets such as Playa Vista and Santa Barbara. In addition, Lee Homes, Inc. is also developing other types of urban properties such as Live/Work lofts at the Bay Cities Laundry in Venice, and adapting properties from manufacturing facilities to creative office spaces such as The Royal Laundry in Pasadena.
In partnership with CIM Group, Inc., Lee Homes, Inc. started construction on an existing 110,000 sq. ft. industrial building in order to develop 91 for-sale lofts in Downtown Los Angeles. The Flower Lofts project, located across from Staples Center and adjacent to the Metro Blue Line, was the first significant for-sale developments in Downtown Los Angeles in 15 years and set new highs for sales in Los Angeles’ urban core when completed in December 2004 and continues to do so as units are resold.
Finally, the development team for each site is comprised of leading professionals in their field who are experienced in working closely with city staff and surrounding communities. In many instances, team members have worked together for over 30 years. Team members are picked for their expertise in a specific discipline and their “absolute” commitment to working as part of a team. Public sector participants ranging from planning department officials to redevelopment directors and city council members are actively solicited early in the development process.
Currently, Lee Homes, Inc. has a number of development projects in various stages of development, valued at over $150 million.
|
|
