CARLSBAD, CA—One of the reasons Carlsbad has been able to maintain open space is that its 25-year overall plan is designed to keep houses from being built on top of each other, Presidio Residential Capital's co-principal Don Faye tells GlobeSt.com. Presidio and Cornerstone Communities have broken ground on the Reserve, a 635-unit community on 156 acres—more than half of them designated as open space—that is being built on a former rock quarry in northeast Carlsbad. The retail value of the project, which will offer 293 single-family detached luxury townhomes and 342 luxury apartments when it opens in 2016, will exceed $200 million. We spoke exclusively with Faye about the project and why open space seems to be a key phrase when discussing Carlsbad development, as well as other trends he is noticing in the residential-development arena.
GlobeSt.com: Open space seems to be a key factor in Carlsbad development. Why is this the case, and how are developers approaching the need for open space here?
Faye: Every new project that's being built anywhere is required to have a certain amount of open space. You don't want a community that is really impacted by high density—you want open corridors and open spaces and walking trails. In this particular project, the Reserve, there's a stream running through it and open space that won't be developed at all. In addition, there will be parks and walking trails and a recreational facility to serve the community. Almost every project, unless it's a downtown high-rise, has open space built into it—it's not unique to Carlsbad. Carlsbad has been a very progressive city for a number of years; it has spent 25 years in overall planning for additional housing, and it's done a very good job of providing a nice blend of retail services, open space, walking trails and housing so that it's not a mass when you go there. Flying over L.A., all you can see is street after street, house after house; there's very little open space. Carlsbad has done a great job with open space. It also has a lot of topography that lends itself to open space so you don't have houses on top of each other.
GlobeSt.com: What trends are you noticing in luxury residential development?
Faye: As we've come out of the real estate depression of the mid- to late-2000s, generally houses have started to grow again, which is typically what happens. You have a lot more technology in houses—they're much more energy-efficient, as it relates to both gas and electric and water. Every generation of new houses, every 10 years, has a whole new generation of appliances, architecture and features that are improved and refined over those time frames. That's why generally people are willing to pay a premium for a new home over a resale of a comparable size.
GlobeSt.com: What is particularly unique for you about the Reserve project?
Faye: It's very close to freeway access at College Blvd., but you won't hear the noise from the freeway. It will provide housing that's affordable for the Carlsbad marketplace; it will have some rental units, and we're in the process of preparing for that. These will have 60 to 70 affordable-housing units to try to meet the entire housing stock for a particular area. It's close to both recreational, not too far from the beach and shopping—there's a Westfield shopping center is very close—and markets are there. It's a well-located piece of property for housing.
GlobeSt.com: What else should our readers know about this project?
Faye: You may have heard that when we did the grading, we found some ancient bison bones. This was not typical, but it didn't slow down development. We brought an archeologist on board right away, trucked off the bones and were able to resume grading within a day or so. The bones provided a little history of what happened in that area hundreds of thousands of years ago, and it was unique to that particular project.
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Carrie Rossenfeld
Carrie Rossenfeld is a reporter for the San Diego and Orange County markets on GlobeSt.com and a contributor to Real Estate Forum. She was a trade-magazine and newsletter editor in New York City before moving to Southern California to become a freelance writer and editor for magazines, books and websites. Rossenfeld has written extensively on topics including commercial real estate, running a medical practice, intellectual-property licensing and giftware. She has edited books about profiting from real estate and has ghostwritten a book about starting a home-based business.
