In about the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee, one can hop onto the I-5 South from San Diego’s Clairemont neighborhood and get out of the car in downtown. A 17-or-so acre tract of land that can be transformed from a no-longer-needed elementary school grounds into a 52-unit single-family home community is a rarity on the densely developed mesas a stone’s throw north of the city.
This is CalAtlantic’s Tavara Ridge, a classic infill development perched on the rim of lovely Stevenson Canyon in Clairemont, and it’s just this kind of tract big builders have added to a strategic playlist of post-downturn proficiencies, learning the art of the “hairy” deal. Infill as a core focus complements these firms’ master planned community development initiatives as mini-labs that emphasize sophisticated community relations strategy, smart timing, and a precisely calculated product positioning to succeed.
So, in today’s sizzling market, it should come as no surprise that demand for low seven-figures, two-story 2,800 sq. ft.-to-3,300 sq. ft. cutting-edge designed new homes in neighborhoods that have seen nothing of the sort for decades would be strong.
Strong can hardly describe the response so far to CalAtlantic’s Tavara Ridge project. The site, the former Stevenson Elementary School grounds Ryland Homes bought from the city of San Diego in December 2014 for a reported $13.2 million. After planning, zoning, and open public hearings eventually resulted in a blessing of the project and its impacts on the community in 2015, it grand-opened April 22 of this year, and had recorded 29 sales–more than half of the entire community–in just over 60 days. In other words, a neighborhood the builder might have expected would take a year to sell-out is on pace to do so in a four-month torrid stretch, having struck a chord with buyers mostly from within the very zip code of where crews are on about a 100-day start-to-completion construction cycle at the site.
After a two-day charette with land planners, Carlsbad-based landscape design firm BrightView, interior designers, and Woodley Architectural Group, a horseshoe-style loop feeding at both ends into Pocahontas Avenue in Clairemont plotted 52 homes on 6,000-or-so square foot lots in three styles–Plantation, Santa Barbara and California Ranch.
Each style aims at a buyer segment–young adult millennials, a young family with children, and a 55+ type move-down buyer–each of whom might be excited by both the proximity to the city, the accessibility of stores and restaurants, and the ease of getting to the beach. The calculations, the design, and the marketing seem to have worked in this case.
CalAtlantic national VP, communications Danielle Tocco, and San Diego division president Bill Ostrem
“For all the market intelligence we develop on this type of site about where our buyers might come from, it’s amazing how many customers are right in the vicinity,” says CalAtlantic San Diego division president Bill Ostrem. “Part of the beauty of this is we’ve done some good diligence of the homes in the neighborhoods around here, and we wanted to both blend with the community sensibilities, and offer something new.”
For Ostrem, who earned his wings in development, effective community relations tactics and strategy, local politics, etc. since the late 1980s at EastLake Company/Yokohl Ranch, and subsequently as president of Black Mountain Ranch, Tavara Ridge is like a little gem. It has enabled he and the CalAtlantic team to sharpen their product and neighborhood development skills on a smaller, more finite–but equally satisfying scale.
“We’re excited by the response here, and we’ll be looking for more of these opportunities as they come up around the city,” says Ostrem.
Of course, the fact that the big public builders are both hungry and capable when it comes to these sorts of little tracts makes it tough on smaller, nimble, private builders who might have won first dibs on this sort of opportunity in other times.
