STeve Soboroff He is a veteran real estate developer and public leader who served as Los Angeles Police Department Chief for 10 years. He also served as a parks commissioner, vice chairman of the Los Angeles Dodgers, chairman and CEO of Playa Vista, and was a key promoter of Staples Center (now Crypto.com Arena).
Mr. Soboroff, 75, spoke to the Business Journal at the Park at Cross Creek, a project he developed with Malibu partners, about his role in the public and private sectors, the challenges of growing in Los Angeles and more. He talked about his desire to do something. His hope was to “simplify the complex.”
“The key to getting things done is to break down complex situations into small simple parts and work on those simple parts every day,” he said.
You served as Los Angeles Police Chief for 10 years before retiring and held numerous other public sector positions. How do they compare to being a real estate developer?
My career as a public servant is wide-ranging. I learned a lot about a lot of things. I have learned that the path to the goal in all these places and in all these areas is through positive reinforcement and appreciation of public servants. Democracy is so exhausted that it’s almost like a debt of gratitude to bureaucracy…
It is much easier to develop, because it is not a democracy, but a benevolent dictatorship or just a dictatorship.
Last year, in an effort to make living in Los Angeles more affordable, apartment owners announced a program to subsidize police recruit units. Can you tell me how that program turned out?
Almost the only obstacle the Los Angeles Police Department has is that in a community policing environment, officers cannot afford to live in the neighborhoods they police…
The idea was a police officer. Based on the salary he is a police officer who can be paid $1,600 to about $1,500 a month. They are recruits because there aren’t enough people for everyone. So my goal was to buy a $3,500/month unit for $1,500/month. He was able to get many landlords to reduce the rent on their apartments from $3,500 to $2,500, which he matched by raising $2.5 million.
My hope is that the city recognizes that this is an item that needs to be added to the budget in order for Los Angeles to be competitive in recruiting. We are losing a lot of police officers.
More generally, is the city doing enough to encourage affordable housing development?
We’re doing more exponentially than ever before, but that’s not enough. This is because demand is growing faster than supply. Also, the middle class no longer exists because it’s either the haves or the have-nots.
How has the cost of doing business and the business environment in Los Angeles changed over the years? Is it difficult to work here or have there been advances in that regard?
There’s one thing everyone has said to me since 1971: It’s like, “I just finished a project in LA and I’m not going to do another one.” My question to them is “How was it?” And they always say “great.” And I say, “Well, why don’t you make another one?” And they say, “Oh, I’m sure you will,” and it continues to this day.
i called Phil Anschutz Some owners of the Kings and Lakers called and asked about building an arena downtown. Ed Loskey.
It was at the Staples Center and he said those exact words to me. (He) had such a hard time on the Alameda Corridor and so much trouble on the fiber optic that he says, “I don’t want to do this again.” So I said to him, “Phil, how was fiber optic?” “Oh, we did a great thing.” “How was it in the Alameda Corridor?” “Oh, we did a great thing.” I said, “Can I do you a favor?” Believe. Please give this a chance to be located downtown. Give me a chance,” and he said, “Okay.” And the overall goal was for him to spend nearly $1 billion of his own money and to make sure the city didn’t spend any money on building the arena, L.A. Live, and the hotels surrounding it.
Why was it important to you to specifically build Staples Center (now Crypto.com Arena) downtown?
Our convention center had just completed a $500 million renovation, was losing $50 million a year, and was not competitive with San Francisco, Anaheim, San Diego, and Phoenix. Not a competitor. I looked around the convention center and saw nothing. I felt it could help the convention center…and it could be a dynamic change in his 50 years of downtown, and it exceeded our expectations. Ta.
Now we have competition from Inglewood and our downtown has its own problems, but Phil Anschutz has spent more money on LA than anyone other than William Mulholland, who brought water here. He used it. Look at all the residential areas, everything that has grown there, the transportation hubs. All of this has been helped by the dynamics of arenas and what they have brought to the convention center and hotel industries, but new challenges lie ahead.
One of our recent projects is a park at Cross Creek in Malibu. Construction took so long that Whole Foods’ lease expired before the store opened. What got you interested in creating a project like this, and why did it take so long to build?
Opponents argued that even though he signed the contract, he was still a developer and that the D-word was the worst word in the world. They said, “He says he has a deal with Whole Foods, but in reality it’s going to be Food 4 Less or a 30-story office building.” The other person would make up, and that was very difficult. It was very difficult and took 15 years and 3 months. As a result, the lease expired before the store opened. The president of Whole Foods told me that this had never happened. We extended our lease.
We felt this was a need for the community, so the tenants we wanted to bring in here were local tenants, people whose hearts were with Malibu and the Valley. And it was worth it.
One of the big initiatives over the years was Playa Vista. What do you think about the direction the region is heading in? Was the project what you envisioned?
In some ways it was much more than that, and in other ways it was just that. Beyond was the result of Silicon Beach. The 2 million square feet of office space was leased for 15 months instead of 15 years.
Housing, retail, park systems, community self-esteem, schools, libraries are exactly what I had in mind, basically European city life.
Could another project of that scale be built in Los Angeles today?
Yes, it is possible if it is built on environmentally problematic land rather than in a lemon grove like Playa. If the project can be used for mitigation like Playa. The playa was built over an airport, not a wetland.
The project needs to be built and not as a real estate project. They must be built as public policy projects.
What does the future hold for you?
Just a continuation of balance. My positive experiences with my family, my community, and most importantly my current job experience. I want to do more…
There is a problem with promking. I think most prom kings don’t go on dates on the weekends because they’re afraid people will ask them out. I feel like people feel like I’m super busy or that I have to work on a $6 billion project like Playa Vista, but they’re free to call me. I want to work a little more. There are a few things I can do that could be really helpful to this community. I’ve done public service and non-profit work, and I still love working, and the work can be done in any widget…even though I’m on the board of directors of a company on the New York Stock Exchange. I can serve two or three more…
I would like to do a wide range of activities. As far as real estate goes, I’m interested in public works projects and all kinds of institutional projects, things that others have a hard time doing.
I don’t like consulting, but I don’t mind being on a board of directors or being a leader or the face of a project.
Do you have any plans to retire?
This is retirement. I remain retired for the rest of my life. Very few working people spend the time I did with my family, and most people end up spending time with their families after they retire. no.