Chula Vista Real Estate Trends

Otay Ranch High Baseball Golf Tournament

The Otay Ranch High School Mustang Baseball Golf Tournament is scheduled for Friday, January 29th at the Salt Creek Golf Club. The tournament gets underway at 10:00 am with registration, followed by a shotgun start at 11:30. The fee is $95 per player and includes 18 holes of golf, free range balls, drink tickets and dinner at the awards ceremony. The scramble format event offers prizes, raffles and a silent auction. At the conclusion of the day's events, a helicopter ball drop for cash will also be held. All proceeds benefit the Mustang Baseball Organization and its players.

Calling All Princesses - It's a Valentine's Tea Party at Heritage

The staff at Heritage Community Center would like to invite all Princesses from around the land to their Valentine's Princess Tea Party. This community event is for ages 2-6 and will be held on Saturday, February 6th. Choose to attend from either 1:00-2:30 pm or 3:30-4:30 pm. All Princesses in attendance will make Valentine's Day crafts, play games, share fairy tails and enjoy their very own tea party. Remember to dress up in your favorite Princess costume. Parent participation is required. Maximum of 25 participants per party. Both parties will sell-out so register early to guarantee your spot! Fee is $15 per child and $20 per non-resident child and reservations can be made at (619) 421-7032.

Andy McMillin Dominates Field With Overall Victory and Trophy Truck Win at Laughlin

Andy McMillin Dominates Star-Studded Field to Grab Overall Victory and SCORE Trophy-Truck Win at 16th SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge.

Kory Halopoff wins Class 1.

Other class winners include: MacCachren, Villagomez, Lawrence, Caspino, Carr, Bacal and Lopez .

LAUGHLIN, Nev.—San Diego’s third-generation desert racer Andy McMillin completed a perfect run Sunday, easily dominated a field of star-studded racers to capture the Overall and SCORE Trophy-Truck victory at the season-opening 16th SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge. With the race split into two days of 8 laps each of an intensely rugged 6.25-mile course, Andy McMillin ran a combined total time of 2 hours, 2 minutes and 03 seconds, averaging 49.16 miles per hour in his No. 31 McMillin Racing Ford F-150.

The fastest qualifier for his class, Andy McMillin had a one minute, 20-second lead after the opening 8 laps on Saturday extending his lead permanently on the first lap Sunday as all of his challengers fell by the wayside. As the checkered flag fell and the dust settled, his final victory margin was by 7 minutes, 36 seconds over Las Vegas’ Kory Scheeler, who finished the two-day event in 2:09:39 in his No. 51 Real Tech Motorsports Chevy Silverado SCORE Trophy-Truck.

The event featured 126 starters from 11 States, Mexico, Denmark and Germany, who competed in 17 Pro and two Sportsman classes for cars and trucks for over $300,000 in prize money and contingency postings. The classes were split into five groups in Laughlin, the Southern Nevada resort destination along the banks of the Colorado River, each running as part of one of five races each day of five to eight laps over the rugged and challenging 6.25-mile race course. The event was Round 1 of the 2010 SCORE Desert Series.

“It was a great day for us out there today,” said Andy McMillin, who was a prep basketball star at Poway HS near San Diego. “Once we got out in front of Pete (Sohren, No. 2) about the first corner, I just wanted to make sure that we didn’t let him or B.J. (Baldwin, No. 97) get around me. And then B.J. wasn’t there after the first lap so it was cruise control all the way. It was awesome. Compared to Saturday, (I backed off) a lot. Laughlin is a race of survival so I knew I had to get to the finish line first in order to win. The last four laps, I was just cruising. The bumps were getting so big out there but it was a real fun course.”

“Thanks to Sal (Fish) for putting on the race,” Andy McMillin added. “I just really enjoyed myself. I’ve never won here at Laughlin so it really feels good. It was an awesome way to end last year (with a win in the Tecate SCORE Baja 1000) and a great way to start this year off. I think it just counts for the team and just feeling confident. Every time I go to the start line, I know I have a chance of winning in this truck as long as I don’t make a mistake. That says a lot about our team and the way they put this truck together and I couldn’t be happier.”

Another third generation desert racer, Kory Halopoff, Orange, Calif., survived tremendous attrition caused by the difficulty of the course, defeating a talented group of 23 racers in the unlimited Class 1 to win his class and finish fifth overall in 2:13:53, averaging 44.82 mph for his eight laps. Driving solo in his Letner Racing Chevy-powered Tatum open-wheel desert race car, he earned his first class win in this race and his second-career SCORE Class 1 race win, and first as driver of record. He was the second driver for his cousin Harley Letner as together they were the overall and Class 1 winners of last year’s Tecate SCORE Baja 500.

Halopoff led by just one-second after Saturday’s 8 laps, but quickly pulled farther and farther ahead on Sunday as his top challengers fell back because of mechanical issues. Second in Class 1 to Halopoff was Mexico’s Robert Ross who was the fastest on the course for Sunday’s eight laps in his class and finished second in Class 1 and sixth overall in his Jeffries Racing Racer-Chevy.

Racing in comfortable weather with slight breezes, mild temperatures, under mostly sunny skies, Andy McMillin started from the pole on Saturday and Sunday and physically led all but one of the 16 laps over the weekend.

Andy McMillin, 22, whose McMillin Racing family team had six entries in the race, dominated the 28-truck field for his third career race win in the marquee SCORE Trophy-Truck division for high-tech, 800-horsepower unlimited production trucks and second straight after winning last year’s 42nd Annual Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 with his father Scott McMillin. After running the fast lap of the day to start Sunday’s half of the race at 7:10, Andy McMillin earned the first SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge race win for his famous family, ran consistently patient victory laps of 7:33, 7:37, 7:44, 7:53, 7:56, 8:17 and 8:25.

Third overall and in SCORE Trophy-Truck was Nick Vanderway, Litchfield Park, Ariz., with a time of 2:10:41 in the No. 84 Chevy Silverado.

Fourth overall and in SCORE Trophy-Truck was Andy McMillin’s uncle Mark McMillin, whose combined total time for the race was 2:12:20 in the No. 23 McMillin Racing Ford F-150.

Finishing a SCORE career-best fifth in the marquee SCORE Trophy-Truck division and seventh overall was key executive of Las Vegas’ City Center resort Bill McBeath, whose final time was 2:16:52 in his No. 91 Chevy Silverado.

In addition to Andy McMillin and his uncle Mark McMillin, McMillin Racing had six entries in the race. Making his first start in Class 1, Daniel McMillin (Mark’s son) finished third in Class 1 and an impressive eighth overall in a McMillin Racing Jimco-Chevy.

Also making her first SCORE race start, Andy McMillin’s older sister Jessica McMillin, finished 12th in SCORE Lite in a McMillin Racing Jimco-VW. Luke McMillin, Mark McMillin’s youngest son, finished fifth in Class 1-2/1600 in a McMillin Racing Jimco-VW while Daniel McMillin had the team’s only DNF in another Class 1-2/16000 McMillin Racing Jimco-VW, finishing just two laps on Saturday and all six on Sunday, which was ninth among those that went all six laps.

Although he was officially a did not finish for the race because he completed only five laps on Saturday, the fastest SCORE Trophy-Truck in Sunday’s 8 laps was the No. 30 MasterCraft Racing Chevy Silverado driven by MasterCraft Safety CEO Robbie Pierce, Santee, Calif.

In Class 1-2/1600, seven-time SCORE season class point champion Rob MacCachren of Las Vegas extended his four-second lead from Saturday to a final victory margin in his AlumiCraft-VW to 14 seconds over Cory Boyer, Bakersfield, Calif., who drove a Lothringer-VW.

In defeating a field of 21 starters in Class 1-2/1600, MacCachren earned his seventh career class win in this race and his 44th career SCORE class win. His seven Laughlin wins moves into a tie with Donald Moss (Class 3) and George Seeley (Class 5) for the most all-time class wins in this race.

MacCachren also raced in SCORE Trophy-Truck where he finished seventh in class in the No. 20 MasterCraft Racing Ford F-150.

In SCORE Lite, Mexico’s Francisco Villagomez scored his first SCORE race win, moving from fourth place Saturday to defeat a sturdy group of 20 racers in his Pabloff-VW.

Among the other class winners crowned Sunday were: Dave Caspino, Woodland Hills, Calif. (Class 6, Ford Ranger), Mike Lawrence, Sunset Beach, Calif. (Class 10, Jimco-Honda), Elias Hanna, Ensenada, Mexico, Ford Ranger (Class 7SX, Ford Ranger), Juan C. Lopez, Tecate, Mexico. (Class 8, Ford F-150), Kevin Carr, San Diego (Class 5, unlimited VW Baja Bug), Joe Bacal, Anthem, Ariz. (Stock Full, Lexus LX570, William Eriksen, Elizabethtown, Ky. (Class 2, PredatorX18-Chevy), Robert Morton, Aliso Viejo, Calif. (Class 9, DesertDynamics-VW), Reid Rutherford, Montrose, Colo., (Class 7-2, Ford Ranger) and Troy Vest, Molalla, Ore. (Protruck, Chevy Silverado).

It was the third straight Class 5 win in this race for Carr and first for Lawrence, Hanna, Lopez, Bacal, Eriksen, Morton, Rutherford and Vest.

Sportsman Car race winner was Rory Ward, Mohave Valley, Ariz. (Chenowth-Chevy) and Sportsman Truck winner was Nick Tonelli, Huntington Beach, Calif. (Ford Ranger).

Also of note, the four-vehicle Wilson Motorsports team of Long Beach, Calif., saw brothers Randy and Ronny finish third and fourth in Class 1 and seventh and eighth overall while second generation Wilson desert racers Brian and Brad finished fourth and 15th respectively in Class 1-2/1600.

A total of 61 of the 126 official starters finished the challenge, for a 48.4 percent finishing rate.

Round 2 of the 2010 SCORE Desert Series will be the 24th MasterCraft Safety Tecate SCORE San Felipe 250, March 12-14, in Baja California, Mexico.

Have You Ever Wondered Why the Median on East Palomar is So Wide?

It's to accommodate the South Bay Bus Rapid Transit. What is that?... Good question! And I did a little research and I have the answer.

This new 21-mile Bus Rapid Transit service will connect the Otay Mesa international border crossing with downtown San Diego via eastern Chula Vista. New transit access will be afforded to regional employment centers in downtown San Diego, the Otay Mesa Business Park, and the future Eastern Urban Center, as well as to residential communities in Chula Vista and National City.

In the long term, the BRT will operate on high-occupancy vehicle lanes on SR 94 and along the I-805 managed lanes with in-line stations in National City and Chula Vista that connect to park-and-ride lots. The route exits southbound I-805 at Palomar Street in Chula Vista via a new direct access ramp. From there it will travel on a dedicated right-of-way with stations in the Otay Ranch transit-oriented villages of Heritage, Lomas Verdes, and Santa Venetia. From there, the BRT will continue southbound with stations at the new Otay Ranch Town Center, the Eastern Urban Center, and a future university station. The BRT will use SR 125 to directly serve the Otay Mesa Port of Entry.

Between 2002 and 2005, planning and engineering studies on the alignment, station locations, and transit priority treatments, as well as development of preliminary capital and operating cost estimates were completed. In early 2006, work focused on integration of the BRT project (stations and direct access ramps) into the I-805 managed lanes environmental document. The current phase of work includes environmental analyses and preliminary engineering.

The South Bay BRT project, which will be designed and built by the San Diego Association of Governments and operated by the Metropolitan Transit System, is expected to go into service in late 2012 or 2013. It will benefit the community in numerous ways, including:

• Providing a rapid and reliable transportation alternative connecting Downtown San Diego and the Otay Mesa Port of Entry.
• Extending service to areas that do not currently have access to rapid transit.
Offering competitive prices to encourage ridership for business, recreational, and student travelers.
• Relieving traffic congestion in a major transportation corridor.

WOW! What next?

DREAM Homes & McMillin Realty Bring South County to the World

Yesterday the first edition of McMillin Realty's San Diego South County Edition of Dream Homes Magazine was published in the San Diego Edition of Dream Homes and in it's International Magazine, giving Chula Vista and it's surrounding communities worldwide exposure.

McMillin is proud of the city it has helped develop and support, and when the opportunity came to showcase our fine city in one of our industries top magazines, well, we jumped at the chance. We want the world to know what we already know. Chula Vista is the best place on earth to live!

Here is a copy of our first edition. We hope you enjoy it!

Little League Sign-Ups NOW

Last chance to sign up your son for little league with Parkview, home of the Little League World Champions.

The last registration date is Saturday, January 16th from 9:00 am - 12:00 pm
Parkview Little League next to Greg Rodgers Park on Oleander Ave.

You MUST bring with you: original birth certificate and 3 proofs of residency (driver's license, utility bill, cable bill, car payment, etc.)

Boundaries are strictly enforced. Go to www.parkviewlittleleague.com for more information

Back to School for our Chula Vista Kiddos

Are your kids ready?... It's that time, back to school for our kids in Chula Vista. The little ones don't start until this Wednesday the 13th, but the Jr High and High Schools start Tuesday the 12th.

I've enjoyed getting up every morning and not worrying about the kids getting ready for school myself. But alas, back to the routine of school life. "Where's my shoes mom?", "Brush your teeth!", "Leave the dog alone and get ready for school!!!", "No, the hamster can't go with you to school.", "Out of bed for the 5th time already"! Yes... I can't wait. The joys of motherhood, work and school.

By the way... I'm off to go backpack shopping. I just found a banana my son tried to hide from me in the bottom of his old backpack from last semester! NICE!

For a quick link to any of your kid's schools, look to the right side of this blog.

Local Lomes Verde Home to Air on TLC

You're finally ready to make the plunge and buy your first home. However, it won't be easy. First, you have to find it. Then you have to make a bid and hope the competition doesn't beat you out. After that you have to get an inspector, who may end up telling you that your future home has faulty wiring or rusty pipes, turning this dream venture into a money-squandering nightmare! If you make it past this point (and that's assuming escrow doesn't fall through), one load of paperwork and half a bottle of aspirin later, you finally get the set of keys to your first new home. And it was all worth it … right?

In each half-hour episode of My First Home, we'll meet a prospective buyer as they seek out a place to call their own. From touring the real estate and picking out the perfect house, to waiting through escrow, to the final exchange of keys, we'll follow these real estate novices through the highs and lows of buying a first home.

Whether they're looking for a two-bedroom condo in Los Angeles or a two-story colonial in Tennessee, every buyer wants something that appeals to their personality as well as their wallet.

But where do they start? For the first-time home purchaser, there's a whole language to learn — terms like inspectors, escrow and contingencies. And that's not all. They also must wrestle with the idea of putting so much time, energy and money into one single investment — as well as the possibility that such a purchase could turn out to be a money pit! Indeed, the process of buying a home consumes your whole being, even after the deal is done.

Tune in as TLC steps into the lives of these wanna-be buyers as they deal with the disappointments, anxieties and hopes of finding and buying their first home.

Airing sometime at the end of February, early March, one of our very own McMillin build Indigo homes in Lomas Verde will be featured as first-time home buyers make the plunge into homeownership in Otay Ranch. Dan O'Hanlon, Realtor with McMillin Realty's Bonita Office is proud to feature his listing on TLC. Dan has played a major roll in real estate in the Lomas Verde neighborhood and is also a resident himself. For Dan and his team this is more than just an honor to have their listing featured, it is an opportunity for them to expose South County, San Diego to the entire country.

My First Home airs on Saturday at 9:00 am on Cox Cable channel 36.

EASTERN URBAN CENTER FEATURES WALKABLE DESIGN

More to look forward to in Otay Ranch!

--The Eastern Urban Center is someday expected to be home to 7,500 in 3,000 residential units — 20 percent will be affordable units for seniors and assisted living — and the site of 10,000 jobs and 3.5 million square feet of office, retail and civic services. It will have a main street served by ground-floor retail outlets, an entertainment district, and housing and offices. The center will feature a firehouse and a two-story library taking up the first two floors of a five-story office building. Sprinkled in will be parks within a three-minute walk of residences, plazas, town squares, trails and bus rapid transit stops.-

It will take 20 years to build and its first phase will have to wait for the construction market to return.

And that’s not expected for another year or so, or possibly even three to five years.

But the 210-acre Eastern Urban Center, a planned $4 billion, mixed-use development intended to be the focal point of the Otay Ranch communities, was approved Sept. 15 by the city of Chula Vista.

When built out, it will provide a glimpse of how green urban development can produce a beautiful place to live, work and walk from place to place without having to get into a car.

The Eastern Urban Center is someday expected to be home to 7,500 in 3,000 residential units — 20 percent will be affordable units for seniors and assisted living — and the site of 10,000 jobs and 3.5 million square feet of office, retail and civic services. It will have a main street served by ground-floor retail outlets, an entertainment district, and housing and offices. The center will feature a firehouse and a two-story library taking up the first two floors of a five-story office building. Sprinkled in will be parks within a three-minute walk of residences, plazas, town squares, trails and bus rapid transit stops.

“It will be a regional destination,” said Todd Galarneau, project manager for its developer, The Corky McMillin Cos. “It’s a forward-thinking, sustainable design that brings the urban experience to Otay Ranch for the first time.”

The center’s proximity to Mexico is key, adds Galarneau. “There are a good number of buyers from Mexico,” for both permanent and vacation homes.

Green Features Galore

The project is now assembling applications for LEED Silver certification of environmental efficiency standards. That designation requires a pedestrian-friendly design, transit service and mixed housing/office development to reduce necessary car trips by 38 percent. Other green features of the project are the innovative processing of runoff water. Stormwater flowing off of buildings will be filtered through surrounding landscape and tree wells, says Galarneau. Those systems improve the quality of the runoff water, he said, and reduce the volume of water runoff into storm drains.

Nick Lee, the project’s sustainable development engineer, says the biggest challenge he faces is designing the project’s buildings to be green.

“You try to take a step back and see the economies of scale,” he said. Along with the runoff water systems mentioned by Galarneau, Lee says the project will cut typical water use with a pipe system of reclaimed water from the Otay Water District. That water, which is filtered, but not intended for consumption, will also irrigate street trees and public landscaping.

Electrical service for buildings will be designed to plug into a future “smart grid,” which allows utility customers to have wireless meter reading and a real-time look at electricity usage. The idea, says Lee, is to show customers when they are using high volumes of power and encourage them to turn off appliances to cut usage and costs. Other energy efficiencies planned for buildings include use of windows for lighting, solar energy options and insulation.

Nate Cherry, an architect with the Los Angeles office of RTKL Associates Inc., is the lead building designer for the project. He says the goal of the design is to create a mixed-use project that connects all the neighborhoods around the site as much as possible, since they were built as a series of separate, unconnected developments.

Cherry also placed the commercial hub of the project at the north end. He planned the “very important transit connection” there. For the project’s housing he put in blocks of dense housing clusters. He included design features often seen in Southern California and San Diego architecture.

“There’s use of indigenous styles so it feels like a friendly, familiar place,” said Cherry, noting the use of a lot of plaster and clay tiles for building materials, trellises, indoor and outdoor terracing, and balconies that look down onto public squares and awnings.

Variation Of Similar Theme

Gary Halbert, the city of Chula Vista’s deputy city manager and development services director, says the Eastern Urban Center is often compared to University Towne Center in San Diego.

“Frankly, I don’t think that’s a real good comparison,” said Halbert. “The Eastern Urban Center will be a high-density, mixed-use of office, hotel and residential. It will be a walkable community. Bus rapid transit will literally go right into the heart of the community. To come out of the ground with bus rapid transit feeding it from day one will be a wonderful thing.”

This project is unusual, he says, because it won entitlement approvals first, before any construction drawings were submitted for approval. He figures those will take another year to draw up.

Looking ahead, Halbert sees the tough conditions in the building market to continue for some time.

“Somewhere in the three- to five-year time frame is when I’d expect to see first-phase construction,” he says.

Eastern Urban Center

View more documents from The Corky McMillin Companies.

Mark Larson is a freelance writer for the Business Journal.