Predicting a continued upswing in the communities of Covina and West Covina, Culver City-based Goldrich Kest, one of California’s finest and most successful real estate builders and property managers for six decades, has purchased Sunset Plaza, a 183-unit apartment building in West Covina, for $44.85 million. Built in the early 1960s, the property consists of 15 two- and three-story buildings with a combined 176,028 square feet and offers studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom floor plans with balconies, granite countertops and air conditioning.
According to Goldrich Kest President Carole Glodney, the company will invest more than $6 million to make full interior upgrades as well as other improvements. The property features a number of amenities including two swimming pools, fitness center, movie theater, game room, courtyards, children’s play room, bbq/picnic areas and a business center.
The acquisition of Sunset Plaza represents the company’s third purchase in the area in just two years; the others are the 116-unit Windwood Apartments in West Covina and the Las Palmas Apartments in Covina containing 102 units. Goldrich Kest also owns the 312-unit Walnut Ridge Apartments in West Covina.
“We are delighted to announce our acquisition of Sunset Plaza, which reinforces our commitment to the Covina and West Covina communities,” said Glodney, who added that the area’s increased rent growth of 4.4% and high occupancy rates of 97% and little new apartment construction make it an ideal investment.
“We’ve discovered that many of our tenants find the area conveniently connected to many employment hubs.”
The company was founded by Jona Goldrich and Sol Kest, both Holocaust survivors who have since passed. They launched their company in 1957 with $200 in their pockets and parlayed that into an extensive portfolio of residential, commercial, industrial, and retail space.
Among their projects are 120 apartment buildings with 13,188 units, 5 marinas with 2,139 slips, 24 senior living facilities with 4,248 beds, and more than 11 million square feet of commercial space. Seventy of their apartment buildings accommodate low-income families and Goldrich Kest offers free after-school and summer programs to keep its young residents engaged and eager to learn.
Goldrich Kest were innovators in their field having been major proponents of condominiums during their infancy in the 1960’s and building senior living facilities starting in 1965. By 1968, the company was a pioneer developer in Marina Del Rey where they built one of the first luxury apartment/marina complexes in what was previously considered swampland.
In 1970, they entered the Northern California market by unveiling San Jose Gardens Apartments and the next year extended their footprint to San Diego with the opening of Genesee Park Apartments. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s construction boom, Goldrich Kest continued adding government-assisted housing to its portfolio and rapidly became one of California’s largest developers of government-assisted apartments. In the 1980s, the company expanded outside of California for the first time.
For more information about the company, visit goldrichkest.com