Windstar Plans 430 Units

LOS ANGELES-Windstar Communities, a division of San Diego-based Nexus Properties, plans to build a 430-unit luxury apartment complex called Pacific Place on a recently acquired site of nearly five acres. The development site, which Windstar bought from Trammell Crow Residential for $42 million, is at the northwest corner of La Cienega Boulevard and Pacific Concourse Drive, not far from Manhattan Beach.Eric Heffner, a principal of Windstar, tells GlobeSt.com that the company expects to break ground on the project next month and should complete construction sometime in late 2007. The development is the first in Los Angeles County for Windstar, but the company's principals have owned and developed projects in L.A. County in their respective careers.Windstar's partner in the project is Hartford, CT-based Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers, which maintains a Los Angeles-area office in Santa Monica. The Pacific Place development site is a landscaped but undeveloped parcel within the Pacific Concourse business park, which includes a list of corporate tenants as well as a new Los Angeles County courthouse. Windstar's plan for the project is to build and hold it, as the company typically does.Pacific Place has been designed by Van Tilburg, Banvard & Soderbergh of Santa Monica and will feature two five-story buildings comprising a total of approximately 390,000 rentable sf. The unit mix will consist of 56 studios, 215 one-bedroom units, 149 two-bedroom units and 10 three-bedroom units.There will be two underground garages, each with two levels. The property will feature a fully amenitized common area, a movie theater, a clubhouse, an exercise facility and two swimming pools. The project will be the latest in a series of Southern California developments for Windstar, which was established in July 2003.Windstar, which is headed by Heffner and Darrell Gary, has more than 2,400 multifamily residential units in various phases of development from entitlement to construction. Among these is Stadium Lofts, the first multifamily development in Anaheim's Platinum Triangle, which broke ground in late 2004 and is also a joint venture with Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers.