the $1 deal
Ratkovich Properties bought the Imperial Hardware building from the city for $1
https://www.pe.com/2015/08/10/riverside-loft-developers-hope-to-draw-more-residents-downtown\
Over their combined 50-year development careers, the principals of Ratkovich Properties have collectively entitled and developed projects with a value of nearly $1 billion...
http://www.ratkovichproperties.com/about-ratkovich-2/
the $1 deal
Ratkovich Properties bought the Imperial Hardware building from the city for $1
https://www.pe.com/2015/08/10/riverside-loft-developers-hope-to-draw-more-residents-downtown\
91 High-End Apartments Open in Downtown Riverside…
By Ryan Hagen | August 2018 | Riverside, CA – Riverside’s downtown historic core, which has been transforming for the past decade with new restaurants and entertainment options, saw the opening of its first new housing in the area. Imperial Hardware Lofts celebrated a grand opening on Thursday, Aug. 16, for 91 high-end apartments at Main Street and University Avenue….
http://www.ratkovichproperties.com/our-news/
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focused on downtown revitalization.
the momentum for downtown districts that serve everyone from young millennials to empty nesters is growing.
“I see a yearning all over the country to live more simply, walk more and enjoy cultural events,”
focused on downtown revitalization.
“We looked at one another and said, ‘Wow.’ This is one of the most beautiful cities we’d seen,”
buildings with notable historical and architectural flair that add to the city’s vibrancy: the Mission Inn, Riverside County Courthouse, Fox Performing Arts Center, the new Riverside Convention Center and Centennial Plaza, where the Culinary Arts Academy and Riverside Community College District offices
loft apartments and ground-floor retail project using the historic downtown
Lofts development at Main Street and University Avenue in 2016.
“What we saw blew us away,
real estate development experience has developed residential, mixed-use, and commercial projects throughout Southern California.
” The building, the urban developer”
urban retail and street retail also - designed in a way to house - apartments above the retail complex.
” Ratkovich, the urban developer”
Riverside's historic Imperial Hardware Building on Wednesday. 2015
The building, at the corner of University Avenue and Main Street, is going to be preserved as part of a $22 million development
planned at the site.The Edison Building project to turn a former Long Beach City Hall space into a residential complex for artsy millennials was well underway when Cliff Ratkovich got the call from a former community development director in Fullerton.
“We need you in Riverside,” Riverside Assistant City Manager Al Zelinka said.
Ratkovich said he shrugged off the invitation at first.
“Frankly, Riverside has been the city you give the affectionate postcard wave to as you drive from Orange County on your way to Palm Springs,” Ratkovich confessed.
Were it not for Zelinka’s reputation as a community developer, the Irvine-based Ratkovich Properties president might not have hopped into his car with another principal in the firm, Rob Dodman, to take a drive to Riverside.
They took the Mission Inn Avenue exit, cruised the downtown district, and did a 180-degree turn.
Months later,
Ratkovich Properties bought the Imperial Hardware building from the city for $1
in a deal to put Riverside on the mapRatkovich Properties has its entitlements in hand to build Imperial Hardware Lofts, a six-story, 91-unit loft apartments, and ground-floor retail project using the historic downtown
structure for the transformation.Now in the construction drawing phase, Ratkovich Properties plans to begin building the $25 million Imperial Hardware Lofts development at Main Street and University Avenue in 2016.
“What we saw blew us away,
” Ratkovich said, as the urban developer
clicked offbuildings with notable historical and architectural flair that add to the city’s vibrancy: the Mission Inn, Riverside County Courthouse, Fox Performing Arts Center, the new Riverside Convention Center and Centennial Plaza, where the Culinary Arts Academy and Riverside Community College District offices
are coming into view.“This is an authentic, walkable downtown with history,” Dodman said.“What we saw blew us away,“We looked at one another and said, ‘Wow.’ This is one of the most beautiful cities we’d seen,” Ratkovich recalled. “The only problem was no one was living downtown.”
The firm, which worked out the particulars to acquire Imperial Hardware with Riverside’s development director, Emilio Ramirez, inked
the $1 deal
with a promise to spend $1.3 million for restoration and other work – sell above the $495,000 appraised price – to build the Imperial Hardware Lofts, a six-story, 91-unit building with apartments and shops, at Main Street and University Avenue.Originally two separate buildings put up in 1900 and 1920, the Imperial Hardware building is clad with a 1930s art deco facade.
Imperial Hardware Lofts will rehabilitate and integrate the building’s facade, brick, and tin ceilings into its design plans. Renderings presented to the city show a building with midcentury modern lines.
“It’s a look that mixes history with modern appeal,” Ramirez said and puts a historical property back to use at the downtown core.
STORIED PLANS
Imperial Hardware Lofts plans to serve active, urban professionals, Dodman said. “Our goal is to create a permanent population downtown that will be walking to work, shopping downtown and having dinner downtown 24/7,” Ramirez said.
Drawings for the project show the first floor with about 8,000 square feet of retail space and restaurants that are chef-driven.
“We see a fresh, daily needs market,” Dodman said, and an amenity deck on the parking garage with a pool, spa, fitness center, community kitchen, fire pits, a dog walking station, and place to work on bicycles.
There’s also talk of a lounge for residents and guests to watch the sunset, take in the skyline, and chat over drinks. The target completion date for the project is summer 2017.
City officials are ebullient over its prospects to give the downtown region residential finesse.
On-the-street reaction to the plans so far seem to be mixed.
“My fantasy would be to see a children’s museum there,” Nadine Loza of Riverside said, as her children danced in a water attraction in the Main Street promenade.
From local artist Anthony Martin’s vantage point, layers of Imperial Hardware taken back further. “There’s a third-rate art deco skin on it now,” he said, as he drank coffee in a mall one recent afternoon. “I’d prefer to see it restored to its original 19th-century configuration.”
Martin said he is glad to see the city move toward the arts. Any emphasis away from sports bars and insanity in the streets would be welcome, he said.
“I think it’s cool,” Autumn Zamora, a Riverside City College student, said. “It sounds different. I’d like to live there.”
PROJECTS PORTFOLIO
Ratkovich Properties, with a combined 45 years of real estate development experience, has developed residential, mixed-use, and commercial projects throughout Southern California.
Notable projects include The Wiltern Theatre, Pellissier Building, and Chapman Plaza in Los Angeles.
Cliff Ratkovich said he also had a hand in developing Paseo Colorado in downtown Pasadena while working in partnership with his uncle, Wayne Ratkovich, of the Ratkovich Co. in Los Angeles.
The $250 million project turned an enclosed mall that choked off the life and energy of downtown Pasadena inside out and opened it up to the street. The mixed-urban village with 600,000 square feet of urban retail and street retail also was designed in a way to house 400 apartments above the retail complex.
Zelinka said the company has an excellent reputation for creating great and memorable places.
Ratkovich-inspired projects are legendary, he said, and the momentum for downtown districts that serve everyone from young millennials to empty nesters is growing.
“I see a yearning all over the country to live more simply, walk more and enjoy cultural events,” Zelinka said, so projects like these play well in urban areas like Riverside that are focused on downtown revitalization.
A number of other projects are bubbling up in Riverside, among them The Stalder Building project across from the Fox, a mixed-use residential project that includes 165 units of housing and about 20,000 square feet of retail space. The project, estimated at $40 million, is in negotiation with another developer, city officials said.
“It’s been great to see the aspirations of the downtown specific plan are unfolding,” Ramirez said.
Currently, Edison Lofts in Long Beach is creating a buzz.
Acquired for $2.1 million after closing escrow in June 2013, the 1959 Kenneth Wing-designed building is being turned into a 150-loft apartment, mixed-use complex.
The midcentury modern building, which was vacant since 2005 before it was purchased by Ratkovich Properties, will feature concrete floors and high ceilings, glass windows, and a rooftop deck with a pool, community lounge, grills, cabanas, and fireplaces.
Edison Lofts also has a ground-level cafe and wine bar and a link to Long Beach’s East Village Arts District. Construction is expected to be complete in three months.
Another 500 units are in the pipeline by Ratkovich Properties and other ventures in Long Beach as a result of the Edison Lofts’ adaptive reuse development.
“We can draw a lot of parallels from that to the Imperial Hardware Lofts project,” Dodman said.
Contact the writer: 951-368-9423 or dgruszecki@pe.com
Developers break ground on massive, $215M Broadway Block project in Downtown
The $215 million Broadway Block project, a multi-faceted development set to take up the eastern edge of Long Beach Boulevard between Broadway and Third Street, has officially broke ground and will bring one of the city’s largest developments to what has largely been an empty parking lot for decades…Link to Article >>>
91 High-End Apartments Open in Downtown Riverside…
By Ryan Hagen | August 2018 | Riverside, CA – Riverside’s downtown historic core, which has been transforming for the past decade with new restaurants and entertainment options, saw the opening of its first new housing in the area. Imperial Hardware Lofts celebrated a grand opening on Thursday, Aug. 16, for 91 high-end apartments at Main Street and University Avenue….Link to Article >>>
Riverside: Grand Opening of Imperial Hardware Lofts…
By Press Release | August 2018 | Downtown Riverside takes a huge step forward this week in its continued evolution as the downtown of Inland Southern California. Irvine-based Ratkovich Properties and the City of Riverside will mark the grand opening of the Imperial Hardware Lofts project with an invitation-only celebration scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday (8/16)…Link to Article >>>
These 7 projects are the most ambitious, coolest developments…
By Brian Addison, The Long Beach Post | August 2018 | During Mayor Robert Garcia’s overview of 75 development projects being proposed or constructed throughout the city, there were some definitive highlights that—despite whether you’re a fan of reach-for-heaven development or not—are ambitious to the extent that they’ll alter the city….Link to Article >>>
The Salted Pig prepares for big move to downtown Riverside’s…
By Fielding Buck, The Press-Enterprise | March 2018 | Ronaldo Fierro knows what it means to get in on the ground floor. The restaurateur was one of the first to bring the gastropub concept to the Inland Empire when he opened The Salted Pig in downtown Riverside in 2011 and now the restaurant will be the…Link to Article >>>
Developer will fill Broadway’s ‘hole in the doughnut’ in Long Beach…
By Andrew Edwards, Press Telegram | March 2018 | A developer now has the green light to move forward with the Broadway Block project, an effort to build a $200 million residential complex, dining space and arts venue on the downtown Long Beach land that’s still occupied by the former Acres of Books site.Link to Article >>>
Who’s Investing In Long Beach?
By Brandon Richardson, Long Beach Business Journal | November 2017 | Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia frequently describes the city as “booming.” One of the measures he uses to demonstrate this is the number of developments underway and planned citywide. Dozens of developments, residential and commercial, are already taking shape, with more to come….Link to Article >>>
New Look Emerges for $195-Million Long Beach Development
By Steven Sharp, urbanize LA | September 2017 | Longbeachize has unveiled new renderings for the Broadway Block development, a $195-million development in Downtown Long Beach that would remake a two-acre property adjacent to the Metro Blue Line. The project – bounded by 3rd Street, Broadway and Long Beach Boulevard…Link to Article >>>
Visionaries – Shaping The Future Of Long Beach Cityscape, Cliff Ratkovich
By Brandon Richardson, Long Beach Business Journal | September 2017 | With more than 50 development projects in the planning phase, under construction or nearing completion citywide, the Long Beach cityscape is beginning to transform. These changes will be most prominent when viewing the downtown skyline, according to Cliff Ratkovich, president of Ratkovich Properties.Link to Article >>>
New renderings for CSU-Long Beach development features pyramidal facade and mirrored pools
By Antonio Pacheco, The Architect’s Newspaper | September 2017 | A previously-released development proposal for the so-called Broadway Block complex by Ratkovich Properties, Urbana, The Owl Companies, and Cal State University Long Beach (CSULB) has been updated to include more residential units. The project update, first reported by Longbeachize, contains an additional 18 units over the…Link to Article >>>
Downtown Long Beach development includes apartments, offices, and student housing
By Elijah Chiland, Curbed Los Angeles | May 2017 | Downtown Long Beach has become a hotbed of development lately, and a large new project at the site of a long-shuttered bookstore is only adding to the mix. As Longbeachize reports, the new development on Long Beach Boulevard between Third Street and Broadway is set to include a 21-story residential tower and a separate seven-story structure with apartments and a performing arts venue for California State University Long Beach.Link to Article >>>
Prospects for Long Beach’s economy look bright, economists say at annual forum
By Andrew Edwards, Press-Telegram | April 2017 | This may be hard to believe given prevailing narratives, but Long Beach (and the United States) may not be on the brink of economic and political collapse.A Cal State Long Beach economist on Friday morning was positively bullish on the region’s near-term economic prospects at a time when developers have shown their willingness to place big bets on the city.Link to Article >>>
Riverside Redevelopment – Imperial Hardware Lofts Groundbreaking Oct. 11
October 2016 | by InlandEmpire.US Business | The public is invited to an Oct. 11 groundbreaking ceremony for the new Imperial Hardware Lofts project from Ratkovich Properties, which will bring retail stores and 91 apartments to the Main Street mall between University and Mission Inn avenues. Link to Article >>>
Developer And CSULB Partner On Downtown Mixed-Use Project
July 2016 | by Brandon Richardson, Long Beach Business Journal | In a unanimous vote at its July 12 meeting, the Long Beach City Council approved the sale of the property at 200-232 Long Beach Blvd. to Broadway Block LLC, a development partnership between Ratkovich Properties LLC, Urbana LLC and The Owl Companies, for $7.85 million. Link to Article >>>
LONG BEACH COUNCIL APPROVES SALE OF ARTEXCHANGE, ACRES OF BOOKS SITE
November 2015 | by Andrew Edwards, Press-Telegram | The future owners of the downtown Long Beach lot that is home to ArtExchange Visual Art Center and the former Acres of Books site view the space as an opportunity to link the city’s business district to its artsy East Village neighborhood. “This is not a site where we intend to do anything we would consider ‘middle of the road’ or ordinary,” said Cliff Ratkovich, president of Ratkovich Properties, LLC. Link to Article >>>
RIVERSIDE: LOFT DEVELOPERS HOPE TO DRAW MORE RESIDENTS DOWNTOWN
August 2015 | by Debra Gruszecki, The Press Enterprise | The Edison Building project to turn a former Long Beach City Hall space into a residential complex for artsy millennials was well underway when Cliff Ratkovich got the call from a former community development director in Fullerton.“We need you in Riverside,” Riverside Assistant City Manager Al Zelinka said. Link to Article >>>
VIEW FROM THE TOP
March 2015 | by Brian Addison, The DLBA | We have your first look into the renovation of the Edison Building in DTLB as it transforms from an abandoned former City Hall (East) space into a residential complex that touts everything from a rooftop pool to an underground fitness center and yoga studio.The famed building sitting between 1st & Broadway at Long Beach Blvd. was built in 1959 and designed by Kenneth Wing’s firm, under the design of then-budding architect and mid-mod master Edward Killingsworth. Link to Article >>>
RATKOVICH PROPERTIES SUBMITS PROJECT APPLICATION FOR IMPERIAL HARDWARE LOFTS
April 2015 | by Ratkovich Properties | Ratkovich Properties formally submitted its Site Plan Review Package and Application to the City of Riverside on March 25, 2105 for its Imperial Hardware Lofts development in Downtown Riverside. The 6-story, 91 unit loft apartments and ground floor retail project will be the first of its kind in the core of downtown for the New Downtown Riverside Urban Dweller. Link to Article >>>
EDISON BUILDING IN DOWNTOWN LONG BEACH MOVES FORWARD WITH RESIDENTIAL RENOVATION
September 2014 | by Brian Addison, The Long Beach Post | Bought for $2.1M after closing escrow in June of 2013, the famed 1959 Kenneth Wing-designed building between 1st & Broadway has seen a plethora of activity as crews finally begin the process of making for a 150-unit mixed use complex. Link to Article >>>
URBAN LOFTS COMING TO DOWNTOWN RIVERSIDE
July 2014 | by The City of Riverside | On Tuesday, July 22, 2014 the City Council approved a Purchase and Sale Agreement with Ratkovich Properties, LLC for the sale and development of the Imperial Hardware Building and adjacent parking lot into a mixed-use apartment building with leasable retail space on the ground floor. Link to Article >>>
RATKOVICH PROPERTIES TEAMS WITH THE KOR GROUP AND WATERTON RESIDENTIAL TO PURCHASE CITY HALL EAST IN DTLB
June 2013 | by Rob Dodman | Ratkovich Properties, a local Long Beach developer of urban residential and mixed-use projects throughout Southern California, formed a partnership with Los Angeles-based The Kor Group and Chicago-based Waterton Residential to purchase the former City Hall East Building from the City of Long Beach. Link to Article >>>
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$340,000: Entire Aussie town goes up for sale
If Australia’s sky-high property prices are making homes in your local area look unaffordable, never fear: a tiny, and we mean tiny, Australian town has listed itself for sale for just $340,000.
The former mining town of Lappa is two hours’ drive from Cairns and has been put up for sale for the first time in more than three decades by the town’s ‘owner’ and mayor, Tim Prater.
The Far North Queensland one-acre town features just three buildings: a rustic train station, a single house (formerly a church), and a beerless BYO pub that also doubles as a museum.
“There is still work to be done to restore Lappa,” he wrote.
“The reward on completion is a perfectly placed stop for visitors to the Chillagoe Caves as well as a potential Lions Den of the Western Tablelands connected to Cairns via bitumen highway.
“Lappa’s charms include pristine seasonal creek and waterfall and rock pools an easy ten minute walk away.”