(Don Jergler is editor of Real Estate Southern California

LOS ANGELES-L.A. Live developer Tim Leiweke on Tuesday railed against the idea that now is a bad time to invest in commercial real estate. Leiweke was speaking at Marcus & Millichap's Southern California Investor Symposium at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

He is president and CEO of AEG, the initials for Anschutz Entertainment Group, which owns the Los Angeles Kings and is the developer of the $2.5-billion L.A. Live entertainment/hotel/office-space complex around the Staples Center, which it also owns.

Leiweke and AEG also gave L.A the Nokia Theatre, which will host the Emmys, and the "American Idol" finale.

L.A. Live and the Nokia Theatre are expected to continue to contribute to Downtown Los Angeles' revitalization and highlight its status as an entertainment hub, when combined with the Lakers, Kings, Clippers and Grammys at Staples Center next door.

The Nokia Theatre is part of the $2.5-billion L.A. Live project, set to include a 123-room Ritz-Carlton hotel, luxury condos, several restaurants and clubs and at least two hotels.

Leiweke said that now is the time to be aggressive with commercial and residential development. "This is the best time to be thinking two or three three years ahead of the curve," he said.

Leiweke gave a similar speech two years ago in Downtown Long Beach encouraging development there and he cited L.A. Live as a centerpiece of the Downtown L.A. renaissance.

L.A. Live will bring many new restaurants and amenities, including Yard House, The Farm of Beverly Hills and the Conga Room, in addition theaters.

Leiweke was bullish on the hotel plans under construction in L.A Live—plans include the 54-story, 1,000-plus room JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton in one building—saying they already have strong bookings far ahead of expected completion sometime in 2010 thanks partly to the nearby Los Angeles Convention Center.

According to him, sales of two hotel projects, office space and residential are going strong, with thousands of bookings several years out.

And as for the residential portion, "Two-thirds of the 224 condos have been sold," he says.

Contrary to home prices nationwide and in the Southern California region, prices for condos in the project have not fallen, Leiweke says, adding, "When we started they were selling at $880 per sf and now they're at around $1,200 per sf. We're not going backwards."

The symposium packed a ballroom with Marcus & Millichap executives, employees and affiliates, offering a cautiously optimistic economic report from Hessam Nadji, the company's managing director of Research Services.

"The bottom is not here yet," Nadji told the crowd, and he added that the industry is seeing historical norms in many areas but that it's being dragged down by the subprime crisis in the housing market.

Instant Insights /

L.A. Live Developer: Time To be Bullish

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