College district selects bid

Deirdre Newman

A bidding war on Wednesday over the development of an apartment

complex ended with the Coast Community College District getting a

commitment of about $1.8 million in annual rent for the property.

After a heated oral bidding process, the district chose Advanced

Real Estate Services Inc. to develop a multifamily rental project

that it wants to develop on property where the district offices are

now.

“It’s very exciting because they kept bidding against each other

and the price kept going up and up and up,” board President George

Brown said.

The board was poised to select a bidder in November, but chose to

abandon the process and start over, citing confusion in the original

request for bids.

After a final agreement is cemented with the district, it will be

up to Advanced Real Estate Services Inc. to work with city officials

on the exact number of apartments it wants to build. The district’s

request was for a minimum of 250 units, and that’s the number

Advanced officials are focusing on building, said Robb Cerruti,

director of property development.

The company isn’t wasting any time as it is scheduled to meet with

city officials next week, Cerruti said.

“[The project] fits into our portfolio well,” Cerruti said.

The original request had asked developers to create a project with

a minimum number of units that exceeded what the city allows. The

maximum density in the city’s general plan for residential areas is

20 units per acre.

The original request also asked developers to design an apartment

on a lot of indefinite size, described as a minimum of 12.14 acres

and a maximum of 13.77 acres. This time, the board chose the maximum

acreage of 13.77 acres so the minimum of 250 units equates to 18.1

units per acre.

The district received 14 written proposals and then was required

to open up the process to oral bids. The highest written bid was

about $1.3 million, spokeswoman Erin Cohn said. During the oral

bidding process, five companies raised the stakes by 5% each time,

and Advanced Real Estate Services was the last one standing.

The company owns about 4,000 apartment units in Orange County,

Cerruti said. This will be its first project in Costa Mesa.

“It’s a real-quality bidder that bid on this, so there’s no

question in my mind that we’ll get a high-quality product,” Brown

said.

The district is counting on the project to generate a substantial

amount of money. In August, the district raised its enrollment fees

by 60% to deal with a funding cut of $4 million from the state.

“We don’t know what the state’s doing to us [this year], but this,

in time, will give us a revenue stream that we can use to help

students and help wherever we need to help,” Brown said. “It will be

an unencumbered revenue stream.”