A Market Ripe for Vineyards

The Vineyards, a $150 million mixed-use development presently under construction, has taken a step forward in its quest to become a retail destination in Porter Ranch. Last month, developer Shapell Liberty Investment Properties announced signing a trio of tenants — AMC, Nordstrom Rack and Ulta Beauty — joining the previously announced Whole Foods Market, which will relocate from its present Rinaldi Street and Tampa Avenue location to a bigger space. These four anchors will comprise 55 percent of the mall’s 335,000 square feet of commercial space. Located at 19950 Rinaldi St., Vineyards will include 266 apartments, more than 100 hotel rooms, 30 commercial tenants and a Kaiser Permanente building on 45 acres. Stores will open their doors in May 2019 while housing will follow in 2020. Developer Shapell Liberty Investment Properties is a joint venture between longtime Beverly Hills-based partners Shapell Properties Inc. and Liberty Building Co. The retail component of the development will total 30 tenants, many yet to be signed, according to Shapell Vice President of Commercial John Love. “This will be a luxury gated community,” Love said. “Residents can access the commercial center without using any streets. There will be landscaping that separates (housing from commercial) but it’s very proximate. You can just walk over to Whole Foods.” ‘Gathering place’ Love described Vineyards’ commercial district, to include a main street, central green area for community events, and 4,000-square-foot community meeting room, as “more of a gathering, experiential place. There isn’t anything like that in Porter Ranch. (This is) not just a place to purchase goods.” The town center will boast such green-friendly features as solar panels and rainwater capture and re-use. Totaling nine screens and 920 recliner seats, the AMC multiplex will also include pre-movie food service to seats, two theaters with premium sound, and a lobby with concessions stands and a bar accessible whether or not one purchases a ticket. On the residential front, Vineyard’s 166 units breaks down to 22 studios, 125 one-bedroom, 90 two-bedroom, and 27 three-bedroom apartments ranging from 620-square-foot studios to 1,400-square-foot suites. This parcel will include a clubhouse with recreational center, pool with cabanas, parks and more than 500 parking spaces. Since Porter Ranch’s developers already fulfilled affordable housing obligations in the past, these apartments will be premium. Kaiser will lease the 50,000-square foot medical office building, which will house specialists. Vineyards not only completes a decades-long master plan for Porter Ranch but also signifies a comeback for the upscale Los Angeles foothill community, which endured a months-long nightmare after a faulty Southern California Gas Co. well became the largest methane gas leak in history. Work on Vineyards pre-dates the 2015 Aliso Canyon gas leak as Shapell had been developing the mixed-use concept for five years. “From our perspective, the gas leak hasn’t been an impediment to what we’re trying to do,” Love said. In fact, Shapell helped build Porter Ranch itself. “Our involvement goes back multiple decades,” Love said. “We were involved getting this master-planned area approved (in 1992). We’ve been involved ever since.” In October 2015, Porter Ranch experienced unwanted publicity when the gas company discovered its well atop Oat Mountain at the Aliso Canyon underground storage field was emitting high levels of natural gas. The State Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources issued an emergency order, L.A. County health officials ordered SoCal Gas to relocate residents, and nearly 2,000 students and school staff were displaced. By December 2016, SoCal Gas predicted it would take four months to cap the leak. During this tense period, Mayor Eric Garcetti deemed Porter Ranch a natural disaster while L.A. County City Attorney Jackie Lacey and State Attorney Kamala Harris filed lawsuits against SoCal Gas. The Federal Aviation Administration banned flights over the area. On Jan. 6, 2016, Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency. On Feb. 18, 2016, SoCal Gas finally plugged the leak. By May, Brown signed legislation requiring stringent safety standards before re-opening the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility. As of early March, per a letter from 27th-District Sen. Henry Stern’s office, state legislators are contesting California Public Utilities Commission Energy Division Director Edward Randolph’s allegedly secretive granting of “seemingly open-ended utilization of the Aliso Canyon underground natural gas storage field” to SoCal Gas. Love regards this unfortunate event on the neighborhood’s timeline as fading history. “We own apartments in Porter Ranch,” Love said. “We never really saw a long-term drop in confidence. There was a moment where the gas company relocated people, but it’s been strong ever since.” John Cserkuti, executive vice president of NAI Capital Inc.’s L.A. North Retail Group in Valencia, said that contrary to the negative national coverage the gas leak brought to the community’s doorstep, demand remains strong on both the commercial and residential front in Porter Ranch, largely because of the lack of inventory. While the markets may have “stabilized momentarily” following the methane outbreak, “it wasn’t like everyone ran for the exit doors,” he said. “We haven’t seen a backward movement in rents.” Vineyards should add to the neighborhood’s commercial luster by bringing in class A tenants, he continued. “It’s not going to be a duplication of what’s next door, which is nice,” Cserkuti said, singling out the mall’s “experiential component, specifically the AMC theaters” while “food has been and continues to be in huge demand.” Retail rents in Porter Ranch, an area with great demographics on average more affluent than Northridge and Chatsworth, is on a par with those neighboring communities, although there are sections of commercial action in Northridge, for example, which can command higher rents. Plus, there’s the housing. Cserkuti noted that, in addition to Vineyards’ apartments, developer Toll Bros. is currently constructing three communities in Porter Ranch where homes will command between $600,000 and $1.5 million apiece. If there is any lingering odor from this unseemly incident permeating the community’s housing market, District 12 City Councilmember Mitch Englander said it is manufactured. “The stigma was more in the media arena than in the community itself,” said Englander, who noted the resiliency of Porter Ranch’s residents. “This is a community that always comes together, whether it’s the ’94 earthquake or seasonal fires and other community challenges. (Post-gas crisis,) we didn’t get any depression at all (in the housing market). In fact, it’s on a major uptick right now with houses selling in the millions.” Development team Framed against the Santa Susana Mountains, Vineyards is the latest co-venture for Shapell and Liberty, which has been partnering on developments for nearly four decades. Founded in 1955, Shapell has engaged in home-building for over 60 years. In 2014, the company also took on management and development of multi-family and commercial properties, establishing offices across California. Five years in his present role, Love acknowledged “a (companywide) sense of pride and accomplishment. … Our group wants to be proud of what is going to be built here.” The June 1, 2017 ground-breaking included Council District 12 officials and Englander, plus executives from other Shapell and Liberty. Shapell has experience in large-scale developments, including a pending 100,000-square-foot retail center in Carlsbad. The company has various commercial, multifamily and industrial projects completed or in development from Thousand Oaks to San Jose and San Ramon. “It’s not the largest by scale (the company has done),” Love said of Vineyards, “but it’s the most transformative because it sets a tone that is different than what has been built to date.” Love considers Vineyards’ incoming tenants and amenities “exceptional.” “We want to bring the residents a premier experience with lots of opportunities to gather memories,” he said.