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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

Finally, Vineyards at Porter Ranch Fully Ripe

February was a banner month for a major retail, residential and commercial project with a long history in Porter Ranch. Now known as Vineyards at Porter Ranch, previously Village at Porter Ranch, the 345,000-square-foot mixed-use project planned since the early 1990s at 19821 Rinaldi St. was entitled and approved by the city of Los Angeles last month. The project, estimated at $150 million, is a joint venture known as Shapell Liberty Investment Properties between Shapell Industries Inc. and Liberty Building Co., both of Beverly Hills. The large center will occupy the northwest and southwest corners of Rinaldi Street at its intersection with Porter Ranch Drive. The 215,000-square-foot retail and commercial portion was approved in late February, while the apartments were approved separately and earlier in the month. Vineyards at Porter Ranch powered through the deaths of the two Shapell brothers who ran the company, the sale of Shapell’s residential division to Toll Bros. and myriad twists and turns, stops and starts. John Love, vice president of commercial properties for Shapell, said Porter Ranch has been a maturing community for about 25 years. “It (the Vineyards project) has been a long-time coming,” he said. “We’re happy to say it’s finally on its way.” The section of the center to the north of Rinaldi Street will include a high-end supermarket and movie theater along with retail and restaurants. The southern portion will have retail, a 65,000-square-foot, 120-room hotel and a 50,000-square-foot medical building just leased to Oakland’s Kaiser Permanente Inc. To the north will be a 266-unit apartment complex. L.A. law firm Liner LLP partner Kyndra Casper shepherded the project through the entitlement and approval process and its complex changes. As designed, the Vineyards required the area’s Specific Plan be amended to allow for a digital sign adjacent to, and visible from, the 118 freeway. It also required other approvals due to density and a conditional use permit so the supermarket and the theater could serve alcohol, Casper said. “People from the community wanted this central gathering area so they don’t have to leave Porter Ranch,” she said. However, the Porter Ranch Neighborhood Council wrote L.A.’s City Planning Commission in August with concerns that the Environmental Impact Report might have out-of-date assumptions about traffic congestion and vehicle emissions, and it also asked that energy- and water-saving measures be implemented at the site. The project will now include green measures, including solar panels and a rainwater and irrigation recycling system, while Kaiser’s building will be LEED Gold, Casper said. “The way that the center lays out is much more pedestrian-oriented. We added a main street, and a center green to have community events, potentially an ice skating rink, and also a 4,000-square-foot community room,” she added. Kaiser’s building will likely break ground in May, the retail and commercial portions in June, Love said. He gave an estimated finish date of fall 2018. Sports Proposition Gary Young, a general contractor with two competitive volleyball-playing daughters, has big plans for Camarillo – 200,000-plus square-feet big. Young, president of Young & Co. in Avila Beach, is set to present his proposal to the City Council later this month to erect two, 100,000-square-foot domes at the intersection of Pleasant Valley Road and Las Posas Road for club-level and touring volleyball and other sports teams. His idea is to mimic a giant sports facility in Anaheim that houses 34 volleyball courts and hosts high-level tournaments, but his will be located much closer to his San Luis Obispo County home. “That was the only facility that was big, and where you could play competition at higher levels, and where college scouts would come,” Young said. He spent three to four months a year for eight years leaving at 3:30 a.m. to get his daughters checked in by 7:30 a.m. “I felt we’ve got to have better way to have tournaments closer.” The climate-controlled structures, designed by Air Structures American Technologies Inc. in Rye Brook, N.Y. look like massive pillows in cylinder, rectangular and circular shapes. Young’s plan for the two domes, a 90,000-square-foot building between them and 2,700 parking spaces could cost himself and his investor about $35 million, he said. Staff Reporter Carol Lawrence can be reached at (818) 316-3123 or [email protected].

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