| Evergreen America Corporation |
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Evergreen America Corporation owned this site for over 10 years. They had envisioned a 2 million square-foot mixed-use project called Mangrove Estates for the site. It would have included residential towers of 1,200 units, a 600-room hotel, a 500,000 SF office tower and a 200,000 SF retail space when LA office vacancy rate stood at 22%, no demand for additional hotel rooms nor retail space in downtown and all new residential projects were low-rise constructions. In addition, Metropolitan Transportation Authority was in the process of acquiring an acre of the land by eminent domain for a new Gold Line station. The loss of one acre of land would have impacted the dynamics of the development project entirely. |
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Lew Horne, Executive Managing Director of Greater Los Angeles area led the marketing team which included Dorothy Chuang, a CB Richard Ellis broker based in New Jersey, who represents Evergreen exclusively nationwide and Mark Tarczynski, a CB Richard Ellis multi-family specialist in Downtown LA, to solicit multiple bids. A joint-offer made by the City of Los Angeles and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority won the bid and purchased the site for $43 million to use it for a number of public projects including a modern police headquarters. |
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