"This is the first time I've ever seen a project like this trade hands in mid-stream," says Curtis Palmer of Colliers Seeley International, who brokered the transaction along with Herb Chase and Alex Quintana, all based in the West Los Angeles office of Colliers Seeley. Although buyers sometimes strike a "pre-sale" deal to buy a new project after construction is completed, Palmer says, the Del Mar transaction is unique in his experience.Palmer tells GlobeSt.com that the joint venture of Los Angeles-based Urban Partners and Oaktree completed $77.3 million of construction on the Del Mar development, which includes 347 apartment units and 11,783 sf of retail space. Archstone-Smith will now finish construction and assume responsibilities for the leasing, with $53.7 million remaining in construction costs. Construction, which began in 2002, is scheduled to be finished February 2006."The developers originally had a construction budget that was substantially lower because they thought there would be room for some profit, but with increasing construction costs, this enabled the seller to get out of the deal whole and defray all the risks," Palmer tells GlobeSt.com. Part of what made the deal work for Archstone-Smith is that rents have risen considerably in Pasadena over the past 24 months, from about $2.10 per sf when the Colliers Seeley brokers began working on this transaction to about $2.30 per sf today."That uptick in rents made this an attractive buy, along with this being arguably the best-located project in Pasadena," Palmer says. He notes that the sales price of $134 million for the apartment portion of the project works out to $378,963 per unit raises the bar from the previous mark of $264,000 per unit paid for a Pasadena apartment property. (The figure assumes a value of $2.5 million for the retail portion.) The $134 million comes out to $397 per sf, compared with $265 per sf for the previous high price. The Del Mar Station will include four residential buildings ranging from four to seven stories, plus a historic depot for which the developers obtained a historic re-use tax credit and moved the depot off site to be rebuilt as a restaurant. The project is located on the Metro Gold Line at the Del Mar Station stop, at Arroyo Parkway and Del Mar Boulevard. In addition to the apartments and retail space, the project includes 1,200 parking spaces, 600 of them for public use by train riders and retail customers, with the remaining 600 for the residents of the apartment complex.

Chase describes the development as "An example of the new urban, mixed-use transit type properties that are being built in major cities around the country, especially Los Angeles." He points out that residents of the complex will be able to hop a train directly to Los Angeles and will also be within walking distance of the shops, restaurants and theaters of Old Town Pasadena.