High Stakes

Big name Las Vegas condos take a hit.

10 MIN READ
Ivana Trump's highly publicized condo project in Las Vegas is up for sale–and its future is unknown.

Paul Hawthorne/Staff/Getty Images

Ivana Trump's highly publicized condo project in Las Vegas is up for sale–and its future is unknown.

Project of the Month: Alice Court

Laguna Beach, Calif. Architect JZMK Partners and developer The Related Cos. performed an extraordinary feat: Plot an affordable housing complex right smack in the heart of Laguna Beach, one of Southern California’s most exclusive (and hyped) beach communities.

The designer’s objective was to create an affordable yet attractive housing development within the ritzy beach community. The end result? A Crafts-man-inspired, 27-unit apartment community called Alice Court.

Not unexpectedly, though, rallying community support for the development proved tough. “We faced a lot of opposition from the immediate community due to the fact that the concept of the project was an affordable housing project with studios,” says Eric Zuziak, a principal at JZMK. “The community did not want low-income residents living close to homes that were worth, on average at or above $750,000.”

(The project’s targeted renters are individuals with annual incomes between $16,140 and $21,520–normally those who work in the city, but can’t afford to live in it. Studio units are about 400 square feet.)

To drum up support for the project, the developer and the architecture firm solicited community input on the project’s design. Locals were concerned about losing their ocean view, so JZMK designed Alice Court as a single-level building on a half-acre infill site that once housed a blighted two-story medical facility.

Gaining approval from the city of Laguna Beach also proved arduous, but the companies came up with a deal. “We included parking spaces in the subterranean garage that would be owned by the city and rented to the local businesses in the area,” Zuziak notes. In the end, the project answered the city’s need for affordable housing while also providing more downtown parking.

The Related Cos. built the project and manages it, but the land and the apartment itself are owned by the City of Laguna Beach. The total development cost of the project was $5.2 million, or $192,488 per unit. The apartment complex opened in February 2004 and is 100 percent rented.

–Abby Garcia Telleria

About the Author

No recommended contents to display.