New home development springs to life!

Escena model homes reopen, crews working to make golf course playable.

The stalled Escena development in Palm Springs is springing back to life.

Palm trees and desert-tolerant plants are being planted along the outer perimeter of the eventual 1,450-home community project that includes the fallow golf course on 460 acres along Vista Chino Road and Gene Autry Trail.
Landscaping teams are working their way around the corners.
The guard-house entrance is being spruced up.
And Greg McGuff, division president of Lennar Corp., said the Escena model homes have reopened to spur the sale of a standing-stock of 38 homes.
It comes at a time the California Desert Association of Realtors reported a 47 percent increase in Multiple Service Listed sales in April compared to the year before. It noted an 11.7 percent gain over the previous month, and a decline in inventory for the third month in a row.
Lennar is not only working on perimeter landscaping.
McGuff said the company is working to make the Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course that closed in November 2007 playable again. “By September, we expect to have the clubhouse completed,” he said.
For months, the sprawling master- planned community that includes models built by Standard Pacific Homes has seemed frozen in time.
The biggest step to spur the Escena restart came in March and April.
New Valley PS, a subsidiary of New Valley LLC, a limited liability company engaged in the real estate business, acquired all the land but that on which the homes of Lennar and Standard Pacific already sit.
New Valley Palm Springs LLC became the new owners of roughly 450 acres in the community when it bought a loan out of foreclosure.
The loan was acquired at its $20million face value, plus accrued interest and other costs, for about $1.5million, according to the parent company New Valley LLC of New York.
It was the collateral property for the debt accrued by Lennar Homes of California Inc. and Empire Land LLC, which were equal partners of Escena. Standard Pacific bought home sites from the Escena venture, and were not involved in the foreclosure action, McGuff said.
“That's history, and I'd rather not relive it,” McGuff said. “I'd rather talk about the future.
L.J. Edgcomb, a builder in Southern California for 20 years who is working as an agent of New Valley Palm Springs LLC, said the new buyer has laid claim to 252 detached home sites, the golf course and land that has been entitled for 615 attached products: townhouses, condos and possibly a hotel.
Asked if New Valley is mulling construction starts at this time, Edgcomb said it's too early to tell.
“We're focusing on the community improvements now,” he said.
“We have owned the property now for just over one month, so as any new owner would do, we are just now still sorting out the details.”
The real estate market is changing so rapidly that it would be premature to say what's in the cards right now, he said.
At the same time, he added: “This is positive. Any movement forward is positive.”