Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Lubeck, Attaway request staff report on Old Town

Ownership change prompts councilmembers to seek update

By Jeff Kearns

While Federal Realty Investment Trust is maintaining a high profile as it attempts to create a major regional shopping center at Town and Country Village in San Jose, it has quietly taken over control of Los Gatos' Old Town Shopping Center.

Federal, based in Rockville, Md., bought into a partnership with local developers Deke Hunter and Ed Storm back in October and has since turned over part of the project to a new contractor.

After months of rain delays in the new construction on the west side of University Avenue, Building E, Federal dropped Devcon in favor of San Francisco-based Bovis Construction. Devcon is still doing the work on the rest of Old Town. Bovis had been a consultant on the project from the start.

Mayor Linda Lubeck and Councilmember Randy Attaway first learned of Federal's controlling interest when Lubeck won a tour of Old Town at a Rotary Club auction. She invited Planning Director Lee Bowman and Attaway to join her on the tour. It was their tour guide who mentioned that Federal owned Old Town.

Lubeck and Attaway later asked the Planning Department for a staff report on the status of the development, after learning that there had been changes to the project. "It's to make sure everything is as per what's in the conditional-use permit," Attaway said.

Attaway said he had not been aware that Federal was the controlling partner. The report will be submitted at an upcoming council meeting.

Hunter and Storm say that nothing major has changed with the project, but they will be submitting a revised set of plans. The original square footage calculated for the project was incorrect, they say, so they'll be adding another 1,000 square feet of retail space to an existing building. The parking requirements won't change, they add.

Hunter and Storm confirmed that Federal is the majority stakeholder in the Old Town LLC and that it replaced other investors last fall. They say that when construction is finished, they will manage the property but will be reporting to Federal.

According to Federal's Web site, "Federal Realty and Hunter/Storm will jointly own, redevelop and operate the property." The announcement was dated Oct. 23, 1997, but no release was sent to the Los Gatos Weekly-Times.

The developers say Federal hired Bovis to keep the project on schedule after the winter rain delays, because the company is more experienced with the kind of construction needed and can supply more manpower. Rains raised the water table underneath the excavation for a new underground parking lot, and work on Building E was halted for about four months.

But the project is still on schedule, Storm says, with some stores opening as early as this August in the existing buildings, and Building E scheduled to open "sometime in the first quarter of 1999." About 85 percent of the retail space is already rented, he said.

Hunter said that they are working to open the parking lot under Building E as soon as possible, possibly as early as September.

[ Back to Contents Page | Los Gatos Weekly-Times Home Page | Archives ]