Century Joins One San Pedro Collaborative

We are excited to announce that our team has been selected by the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA) to redevelop the 478 unit, 22 acre public housing site known as Rancho San Pedro. Located on San Pedro’s waterfront, Rancho San Pedro was constructed in the 1940s and 1950s, first to house defense industry workers and later as part of the federal government’s post-World War II housing mandate. Over the ensuing decades, the public housing site aged, layouts became functionally obsolete, deferred maintenance mounted, and a growing recognition took root that wholesale redevelopment was required. With more than $3 billion of active investment in and around San Pedro presently (including AltaSea, the Waterfront, Port of Los Angeles projects, and more), the time was ripe to pursue redevelopment.

Century joined forces with two other development teams to respond to this opportunity: The Richman Group, a national for profit developer of and investor in both affordable and market rate housing, and National Community Renaissance, a vertically integrated 501(c)3 nonprofit developer and manager of affordable housing. Combined, our three firms represented a formidable team that features financial strength, national reputation, regional experience, and local credibility, and a rich history of actually working together. For our part, Century brought extensive experience developing and managing a large, master planned community (the Villages), a strong history of developing and managing permanent supportive housing, along with deep local relationships amongst the Harbor area’s nonprofit and educational institutions. Our team is rounded out by consultants such as City Fabrick, SVA Architects, KPFF, Cisneros Miramontes, and others.

Together, we formed the One San Pedro Collaborative (OSPC) which views this opportunity as much more than simply redeveloping an old public housing site. Rather, the OSPC embraces this opportunity as an exercise in community development whereby the transformation of an isolated public housing site can become a catalyst for stitching together various neighborhoods, promoting economic advancement, and stimulating large-scale community transformation. Our team has proposed a build out in excess of 1,600 homes, including affordable housing, permanent supportive housing, market rate rental housing, affordable for sale housing, and market rate for sale housing in addition to more than 100,000 square feet of commercial, supportive and amenity space and an extensive community benefits package including a 2.0 acre park.

After an exhaustive nine month process that involved a first stage request for qualifications, followed by a second stage in depth proposal, followed by a formal community presentation, interview with a HACLA panel, submission of Best and Final Offer, tour of our properties (including a memorable and impactful visit to the Villages) and responses to numerous questions in between, our team was selected. It was gratifying to see HACLA’s recognition of our outreach efforts as we spent an inordinate amount of time meeting with community groups, listening, taking notes, and attempting to craft a proposal that was responsive to community need.

The road ahead is long and will be full of challenges but this is an incredible milestone and accomplishment for our Century team. Many thanks to everyone who supported this effort!