Condo Concept Creates Opportunities for Ownership
cajon office condos, real estate, ridgecrest business park,
Scott Nolan remembers driving around Victor Valley with business partner Patrick McCabe looking for space to lease for their mortgage company. Nolan would call out phone numbers of listing agents he’d see; McCabe would dial.
Rob Kurth, a commercial broker, answered one of those calls. He asked why they just didn’t buy a place. They said they simply couldn’t afford it.
Turns out they were wrong.
The arrival of business condos to the Victor Valley real estate market has made ownership possible to a wide range of small-business people and entrepreneurs. At Lee & Associates, Kurth and his partner, Jeremy Schmidt, teamed up with a San Diego developer who brought the idea to the region. So far, Jose Luis Andreu has built Cajon Office Condos and Ridgecrest Business Park, both in Victorville. A third local project is going up in Hesperia.
Cajon is a two-story building with 20,000 square feet of high-end office space near the Civic Center. Ridgecrest is at the high-visibility intersection of Ridgecrest and Bear Valley roads, and listings boast that at least 54,000 cars pass the location daily. It has 75 units; ranging in size from about 1,000 to 2,000 square feet. Some are commercial; others are light industrial; and the owners include cabinetmakers, small construction companies, an animal hospital, restaurants, a National Guard office, real estate offices and other small businesses, Kurth says.
“They realize the benefits of appreciation and depreciation that come with ownership,” he says. “You don’t need landlord approval to configure your space and you won’t face rental increases from your landlord.”
As with a residential condominium, owners pay their own taxes and insurance and pay into a fund for maintenance and upkeep. The monthly cost of about 20 cents a square foot covers maintenance and lighting to the common areas, including parking lots. “It is all handled,” Kurth says. “You don’t have to worry about it.”
For Empowered Equity Mortgage, the fit was perfect.
Nolan and McCabe had decided to set up their own shop but fully expected to rent. Instead, they paid $134,000 for 1,200 square feet and built out the space the way they wanted it. At that price, no other ownership options existed. They’ve been at Ridgecrest for almost three years.
“It was an absolute bargain,” Nolan says. “To buy an individual building was outside our price range.
“The long-term investment is very important to us. Secondary is that we can make changes without permission,” he says. “When we come in to work, we feel great.”
That’s what developer Andreu wants to hear.
“I noticed that small business owners didn’t have a chance to own their own real estate. They rented,” Andreu says.
He successfully built business condo projects in the San Diego area and started projects in Victor Valley as the population exploded. “Usually industrial and commercial follow residential,” Andreu says. “There was a shortage of industrial space.”
The Hesperia project, at Mariposa and Sycamore, will involve several phases spread over 13 acres. This one will be strictly retail, with six units in each 8,000 square foot
building, he says.
“It’s been a successful formula,” Andreu says. “It is always nice to see how proud people are of their spaces and how they take care of it. Always.”
Story by Pamela Coyle
Photo by Ian Curcio
