The LA Business Journal (sub. req.) (via Melrose Village) comes fast and furious with rumors about who might buy a couple of big ticket Casden Properties LLC sites and their planned developments. Owner Cerberus LP has put the sites, including West Hollywood's Movietown Plaza and the Ross Dress for Less on Third St., up for sale following a nasty split with developer Alan Casden. If they don't sell, the properties are otherwise headed toward foreclosure auctions. In October, the LABJ reported that Casden hoped to buy both properties, but sources say "there is such bad blood between the partners that Cerberus would like to find any buyers except Casden." To that end, word is that mega-developer CIM Group is interested in Movietown Plaza (where approvals are in place for a 371 unit development with 32,300 square feet of retail), and that the site also has five other suitors, according to a West Hollywood planner. CIM recently pulled West Hollywood's Sunset Millenium project back from the dead.
As for the Ross, Grove developer Rick Caruso "has long expressed interest in buying the Ross property, and is a likely bidder now that it’s for sale, a source said." The site is right across the street from the Grove, but the project there has been bogged down in objections from neighbors. Casden had hoped to build 300 apartments, half of which would be for seniors.
Bill Bauman, the executive vice president at commercial real estate firm Studley Inc. tells LABJ that the Ross site has been listed since November 18 and that "We’re expecting to have a fairly short offering process, and we are hopeful of selecting a group and doing a transaction sometime this year or early next year." According to Melrose Village, Movietown is set to go to auction December 21.
· Partnership Split Separating Developer, Properties [LABJ]
· Movietown May be Moving Forward [Melrose Village]
· WeHo's Mostly-Empty Movietown Plaza Site For Sale [Curbed LA]
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