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Way back when, Todd Anson helped grow the Internet. (So, if you like this article, thank Todd. Same goes for cat videos and online banking.) Today, heâs working out municipal bond defaults as a co-founder of Common Bond Capital Partners, and he's still working on breakthrough technology. Â  Yesterday, we caught up with Todd at his summer lake house in Michigan. The University of Michigan law school grad and wife Terri will be there through the college football season. (So kids, don't expect any treats at the Anson home in Coronado tomorrow.) His Internet origins date back to his time as a managing partner of the former Brobeck Phleger & Harrison and later as a tech campus developer. He tells us Common Bond was the brainchild of his partner Bill Huck, a municipal finance expert formerly with Stone & Youngberg. The company was founded to take advantage of opportunities in defaulted municipal bond issuances secured by specific real estate projects. While at least $500M in dirt bonds is projected to go into default in California, Todd sees the bulk of this complicated and arcane work happening in Southeastern states like Florida and Virginia.  Friend Dick Enberg, Todd's son Chris, and former Hall of Famer Dan Fouts. Common Bond typically takes large positions at deep discounts in projects like Rolling Hills near Jacksonville, where the company has started selling lots. It's not just residential; Todd and his partners are considering a run at COPIA in Napa. The lavish center devoted to wine, food, and the arts closed in 2008. Fun fact about Todd: his summer home on Lake Charlevoix looks out over Hemingway Point, where young Ernest spent his formative years, and sits on a portion of the historic Castle Farms estate of Sears Roebuck exec Albert Loeb, father of Leopold and Loeb killer Richard Loeb.  As a real estate attorney, Todd created new structures for fast-growing tech companies to take control of the development process. Though the techniques, including synthetic leases and off-balance sheet financing, got a bad rap years later thanks to Enron, they enabled tech companies to buy land, entitle, finance and build facilities without having to rely on the development community. During the S&L crisis in the early '90s, nobody could get financing for any projects, and companies were finding it hard to find facilities. Todd and Steve Black founded Cisterra Development, which partnered first with Cisco Systems, creating facilities the company needed to support and grow the Internet, including a 1.1M SF campus in Amsterdam, 4.5M SF in Boston, and a 220k SF project in Ottawa. Cisterra also developed DiamondView Tower (above), an iconic Class-A office high-rise overlooking Petco Park.  They later partnered with IDEC (now Biogen IDEC) on a 770k SF campus in La Jolla designed by HOK. Todd recalls a closing dinner with Cisco CEO John Chambers, who said that evening, the Internet would be the great equalizer because a poor child in Africa would have access to the same information as an affluent child in America. "I'm still stunned by the vision that John Chambers and the people at Cisco had." Sons Chris and Ryan are University of Michigan grads too: Chris got his law degree last year, while Ryan has a degree in economics. In high school, Chris was a world-ranked online gamer. |
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Who From Real Estate is
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No Full Nelsons, Please Wrestling on the edge of a cliff? No, we're not talking about the sports fate in future Olympics. That's how The Economist US editor Robert Guest described the recent impasse in Congress at the Trigild Lender Conference in San Diego. Messing with the debt ceiling is a dangerous risk because the "global financial architecture" is built on the notion that America doesn't default. On the positive side, he says the US is well positioned to take advantage of growth in emerging markets like China, India, and Brazil, noting immigrants now stay in intimate contact with their native countries, creating strong cross-border networks.  Economist Sam Chandan says 2013 commercial property sales were 277% higher than they were at the bottom, but the shift of capital from primary to secondary markets continues to lag. (If it's anything like moving from primary to secondary school, we recommend the market get a nickname and smaller backpack.) Also, the commercial real estate lending climate has improved dramatically, but an exaggerated degree of volatility presents a huge challenge in moving from recovery to expansion. Attendance at the three-day conference, which focuses on non-performing commercial loans and investment trends, was up 15% this year, according to founder Judy Hoffman, Trigild's COO. |
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Job Numbers: Clear and CloudySan Diego unemployment dropped again last month to 7.4%, or 17% less than last year, according to Cresa. A sharp increase in office leasing activity, combined with low vacancy for large users and rising lease rates should result in spec office developments for some central submarkets. San Diego's biotech industry remains strong, and the city is sixth in the country for investment dollars. One caveat: the ongoing uncertainty in DC and looming cuts in government contracts. Major office leases include the City of San Diego, 90k SF; NuVasive, 62k SF, and Wells Fargo, 61k SF. Cresa pegs the Class-A office vacancy rate at 15.4% in the CBD and 10.6% in the suburbs. |
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