RESIDENTIAL UNITS AT NOHO COMMONS OPEN

Residential units at Noho Commons open. - allbusiness.com
By Garcia, Shelly
Publication: San Fernando Valley Business Journal
Date: Monday, November 20 2006

http://www.allbusiness.com/north-america/united-states-california/3995715-1.html

On November 20, city dignitaries cut the ribbon opening The Lofts at Noho Commons, a pioneering transit village that has been nearly four years in the making.
But for the officials at J.H. Snyder Co. the work is just beginning ... again.
The development company is beginning work on the third phase of the project, which has been redesigned since the initial planning for the complex back in 2002.

For the remaining three-acre parcel of the complex, the company has scaled down an office building that was to have been built in phase three and added a movie theater.
"We're expecting to finalize terms to bring a seven-screen Laemmle theater with 1,100 seats to the project," said Cliff Goldstein, senior partner at J.H. Snyder Co.

The office building, one of the only speculative office projects under construction on the Valley floor, was initially intended to be about twice the size of current plans, but skyrocketing construction costs made it difficult to attract financing for the project.
"The partners and I determined we were willing to take the financial risk to build a smaller building," Goldstein said.

Bringing a movie theater to the project was an idea that had been on the community's wish list ever since Snyder first began negotiating for the project, but theaters were consolidating and retrenching at the time.

Snyder, which is currently in the process of acquiring the neighboring Valley Plaza shopping center, first began talks with Laemmle about locating in that complex.

A movie theater, with its very high construction costs, is not the most lucrative option for any developer--indeed Snyder executives say they will not be turning a profit on that portion of the project. But the theater component would provide a kind of finishing touch on Noho Commons, with its pioneering strategy of creating what is arguably the first urban village designed from ground up in Los Angeles.

In addition to the 280-odd residential for-rent units, most of them lofts, the complex will include 14 live-work lofts suited to artists, craftsmen and others whose businesses and lifestyles can be located in one place; a Howes Market and restaurants that, so far, include The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, California Pizza Kitchen, Daphne's Greek Cafe, and Coldstone Creamery. T-Mobile and Wells Fargo have also signed onto the location.