BajaNomad - Loreto Bay names new management

Loreto Bay names new management

tigerdog - 12-1-2007 at 01:52 AM

Here's an article about the new management group that is going to take over Loreto Bay. It might be good news, to the extent that these people (Replay, Inc.) really know what they're doing. Of course I don't know them personally, but I know their history with the company they originally came from (Intrawest) and it's impressive. (The phrase "Good news", relative to the development of Loreto, is open to to interpretation, naturally.)

Scottsdale-based Loreto Bay Co. is undergoing more changes, with a new management team coming in to oversee the 8,000-acre master-planned community in Baja California Sur, Mexico.

Former executives of Canada-based Intrawest Corp., which owns and develops ski resorts in Canada and the U.S., have formed Replay Inc. to take over Loreto Bay's day-to-day operations and development.

"These are changing times at Loreto Bay," said Loreto Bay President Jim Grogan. "We're restructuring, recapitalizing and bringing in new management."

Although the contract has been negotiated and letters have been sent out informing homeowners of the changes, Grogan said some formalities still are required.

"The deal has not legally closed. It's always a scary time to have publicity," he said. "The deal has been made, and there have been handshakes, but documents are not finalized."

Grogan expects that to be completed by the end of the year.

In October, the company announced that Citigroup Property Investors had taken a majority interest in the mixed-use project amid rumors that the sprawling seaside development was in trouble. Citigroup, which had been among the early investors, now owns 75 percent of the project. Citigroup did not respond to requests for comment.

Grogan, a Valley attorney and developer, would not speculate on whether he would stay with Loreto Bay for the long term.

The company's original visionary, David Butterfield, hired Grogan to promote the project. In that capacity, he has been instrumental in getting heavy hitters such as Arizona Cardinals co-owner Michael Bidwill to buy at Loreto Bay and encourage friends and associates to do likewise. Butterfield was dismissed when Citigroup became the primary owner, but Grogan was retained.

"My focus is getting the deal closed," Grogan said. "And when the dust settles, I'll sit down with the people at Replay."

He said 200 residential units are occupied in Loreto Bay, and an additional 560 single-family homes and condos have been sold.

There's more at http://tinyurl.com/22g69z

Sharksbaja - 12-1-2007 at 02:38 AM

Damn I love those lawyers. THey know when a well has run dry. Guess it hasn't yet. :lol:

Sharksbaja - 12-1-2007 at 02:39 AM

Quote:

Scottsdale-based Loreto Bay Co.

capt. mike - 12-1-2007 at 07:33 AM

just a re structuring, big whoop happens all the time especially in the resort and hotel biz where i spent 12 formative years building casas on a mixed use resort development.
flew over it low slow twice last 2 weeks while hanging in mulege and it looks good from the air with a lot of product in.

and yes, Bidwell is in and likes it. He flies with us in the Sams as a phx member pilot. LB ain't going anywhere for a while, AS FAR AS defunct goes.
still not my cup a tea......to much density but i can see where it works for a lot of folks with the $$ to get in. :lol:

wilderone - 12-3-2007 at 10:59 AM

"just a restructuring"
sure, that happens in business all the time - abandoning a project and hoping someone else will take over when you've heard the echo in the well. And how connected are the "FORMER executives of Intrawest Corp. - who are now taking over? Are they just individual venture capitalists? (In 2006 Intrawest was taken private by private equity firm Fortress Investment Group in a deal worth about $2.8 billion, including the assumption of more than $990 million in debt.) And what expertise in Mexican, sustainable, beachside, ecologically sensitive resorts do the FORMER executives of Intrawest Corp. have to ensure LB's success? I can't see that this turn of events will enable the LB "founders'" promises to come to fruition. They must have some money that Grogan wants to get his hands on. But effective management and expertise? Starting at Square One to be sure.
What happened to SDE Business Partnering?
They couldn't find a single entity in the United States or Mexico who was willing to take on this project?
"My focus is getting the deal closed. And when the dust settles I'll sit down with the people at Replay." I wish I were a fly on the wall in that negotiation room - remember, Grogan was LOBBYIST years ago, an attorney, and a BS artist ("By the end of the project we will harvest or produce more potable water than we use.")

"The Villages of Loreto Bay is my life's work." - David Butterfield

capt. mike - 12-3-2007 at 02:56 PM

:yawn:

Grogan's no dummy. Sometimes things change despite good intentions. Doesn't mean tankage. Who's to say Butterfield was not good intentioned when he started?
you can't hit homers unless you swing. Want to make decent $$ developing? then start out with a **** pot full - and still no guarantees.

I'll wager that few voicing here have the experience to qualify their opines with empirical data gleaned from hands on biz in this industry.

its easy to just complain or gloat, takes no skill effort. What harm has been done yet? it may never be 5000 homes, and if that's a factor of the market and local resources incl natural - WGAF? :lol:

[Edited on 12-3-2007 by Hose A]

tripledigitken - 12-3-2007 at 05:33 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by capt. mike
:yawn:

[Edited on 12-3-2007 by Hose A]

Mike,

You know I have a little experience with Land Developers. We both know a developer that had an agreement to build infrastructure as a condition of a permit, and has apparently wiggled his way out of doing it, because the county let him sell houses before the infrastructure was complete.

I doubt beyond the promises by Butterfield and his group to build power, water, etc. they had no agreement to do so as a condition to develop LB. And what did the fine citizens of Loreto get in infrastructure improvements, very little if not nada?

My bet is they had NO INTENTION of doing anything other than getting as many deposits as they could before they folded their tents.

I could be wrong about Butterfield, but I don't think so.

In my experience developers ONLY build infrastructure if they are forced to my the Juristiction that grants the permits.

Ken

capt. mike - 12-4-2007 at 06:47 AM

i agree Ken. but sometimes it depends on whether the infrastructure is 100% part of the development proper and its support needs or an add on as was the case for the road you're talking about, which the county used in an extortion model to get the developer to pay based soley on the perceived added load from 176 dwelling units.
The reality is SD county should have improved that road themselves years earlier - but they saw a mark coming and advantaged themselves.

i can't speak with total knowledge on LB but i think any/all of their planning was in support of the LB site.
i don't think the city of Loreto was to receive any civil capital improvements as a side bar to the LB projects approvals.

i think what you're going to see there ultimately is a down sized project which will make the no growthers happy.

tigerdog - 12-4-2007 at 09:34 AM

Quote:

And what expertise in Mexican, sustainable, beachside, ecologically sensitive resorts do the FORMER executives of Intrawest Corp. have to ensure LB's success?

To be sure, the only Mexico development I know of is part of Intrawest's timeshare arm, Club Intrawest— Zihuatanejo, which is very nice but is hardly in the same category as Loreto Bay. (They also have locations at Whistler, BC, Tremblant, QW, Panorama, BC, Palm Desert, CA, Vancouver, BC, Sandestin, FL, and Blue Mountain, ON.)

However, these former executives ARE responsible for developing (or beginning to develop) the following (among others):

-Arc 1950 The Village, Les Arcs France
-Flaine Montsoleil – Ski & Art Resort in France
-Honua Kai, a masterplanned community in Ka'anapali, Maui
-Montelago Village on Lake Las Vegas, Nevada
-The Village at Squaw Valley USA, California
-Blue Mountain Resort, Ontario
-Copper Mountain Resort, Colorado
-Mammoth Mountain, California
-Panorama Mountain Village, British Columbia
-Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort, Destin Florida
-Steamboat, Colorado
-Mont Tremblant, Quebec
-Whistler Blackcomb, British Columbia
-Winter Park Resort, Colorado

So for whatever it's worth, one might sing along with the late Jimmy Hendrix:

So-uh, are you experienced?
Have you ever been experienced? (-uh)
Well, I have (This is where the little musical note thingies go to imply I'm singing at the top of my voice. Just as well you can't hear me.) :spingrin:

wilderone - 12-4-2007 at 01:32 PM

Intrawest Corp. was a publicly traded company. These “former executives” – who exactly? - will not have the wherewithal to do what Intrawest Corp. did, so it remains to be seen whether they will perhaps start a new public company trading on the Toronto Exchange, like Grogan did with Samoth Capital Corp., Sterling Financial Corp., a tactic to generate capital, or form a partnership of angel investors, or a joint venture or what. Michael Coyle, former VP of Marketing Strategy at Intrawest, who spoke recently to the LB residents, seems to be of the same ilk as Butterfield, to wit: “... but our part is in creating the residences and beyond that, the milieu where the residences lie, which combine to become gathering places where inclusion and a kind of communion can occur: for families and for businesses. For both groups, our environments and residences allow for a slowing down, in order to rebalance -- so you can become more efficient with less frenzy. We hope there will be, in our vacation places, a different perspective created that allows for a deeper wellness to be achieved. We hope people to think of our resorts and residences as places that can reinvigorate and often times reorder their priorities. Then may then return to their own world with a newfound pace, that touches all areas of their lives”. – Michael Coyle

So are they going to perpetuate the "escape to the magic", sustainability hype or just build a reasonably scaled, reasonably priced development, do their best to appease the Citigroup investors, and then sell the development to another developer once it’s on its feet and they can make a profit (as Intrawest principles did), while Citigroup takes a loss. It remains to be seen whether their new management and restructuring will be focused on marketing, managing or take the project in a new direction, scale it down, make another hotel, or just deal themselves a salary and keep up a façade of developing a sustainable “vacation retreat” (which is the latest term used to describe LB). I doubt that these new players are in it for the long haul.

The individuals who are in the picture now do have experience in building hotels, residence clubs, mountain properties, etc. – where they simply build the buildings and it becomes an income-generating operation. What Grogan did previously was buy large tracts of vacant surburban land in Arizona, Texas and Florida, do the legwork with city agencies for permitting, etc., and then sell the development opportunity to large homebuilder companies like Shea Homes (which contributed to the overbuilding in all those places). Very little stood in his way, and he was primarily building houses for families with jobs. Intrawest built income-generating resorts. But that is not the case at LB.

The obvious question is, with Butterfield, Grogan and Nolan’s (who was the CFO), combined experience, why couldn’t they pull it off before, and why would a new team be able to do it now? How are they going to get around the fact that there is a limited water supply, limited direct public transportation, hot weather, an ecologically sensitive national marine park, coupled the “sustainability” hurdle which we all know is a bunch of hooey.

capt. mike - 12-4-2007 at 03:38 PM

i think downsized it will work fine. and if not it goes away a slow death and mex gov't will be more critical of future dev deals.