Real Estate
Raleigh Enterprises is active in the real estate market in the broadest sense with considerable experience in the development and management of various types of commercial real estate, including shopping centers, residential subdivisions, low and high-rise commercial office buildings, hotels and film studios.
During its earliest years in the mid-50's, Raleigh sub-divided land and built homes in Southern and Northern California. Its first project was in Garden Grove, California and consisted of 15 homes on 5 acres of Orange grove. In the late 50's, the company started developing and building commercial projects, including shopping centers, apartment buildings and offices in and about Los Angeles. In a 1963, joint venture with Playboy Enterprises, Raleigh completed that company's corporate office building and home to the famed Playboy Club on the Sunset Strip. During those same years, Raleigh completed and opened the Sunset Marquis Hotel just down the block from the Playboy Building.
In the mid-1990's, mired in the midst of a real estate depression, Raleigh, with Mike McNeilly of Sky Tag and with the assistance and approval of the City of West Hollywood, pioneered the concept of tall wall advertising on the side of the Playboy building, creating an entirely new revenue source for this real estate asset.
In 1984, Raleigh completed the development of a 220,000 square foot, eleven-story building in a venture with Executive Life. That project's garden was awarded first place in the 1985 Los Angeles Beautification Awards. In 1989, Raleigh completed an adjacent 250,000 square foot office development and also pursued the master planning of the Garden District on West Olympic Boulevard.
Through its relationships with Executive Life, Raleigh ultimately acquired, managed and sold approximately one billion dollars in assets. These assets included a portfolio of nearly ten thousand Class-A apartment projects across the U.S., a nation-wide portfolio of 570 post-office and GSA buildings and 800 co-op apartments in NYC.
In 1986, Raleigh completed the master expansion of Raleigh Studios, encompassing over 100,000 square feet of low-rise offices and approximately 50,000 feet of new sound stages, the first to be built In Los Angeles County in a generation. In 1998, as manager and master lessee, Raleigh was heavily involved in the development and construction of Raleigh Studios Manhattan Beach by Roy E. Disney's investment company, Shamrock Holdings. Most recently, Raleigh has overseen the development and opening of nearly one million square feet of studio space in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Budapest, Hungary, Pontiac, Michigan and most recently, Wuxi, China.
In 1989, Raleigh undertook a joint venture with John Carner, founder and principal in Murray Plumbing Company, to develop a high-rise condominium project at the corner of Club View Drive and Wilshire Boulevard. Immediately adjacent to the Los Angeles Country Club and the first corridor project west of Beverly Hills, it was an extremely high profile project. Right before launch of construction in 1991, the country endured a collapse of the banking and savings and loan industry which marked the beginning of a protracted recession. Raleigh shelved the project for a decade and in early 2000, partnered with the Fifield Company to recommence the development of a world class high rise condominium project on the site. Although the project faced multiple challenges during a multi-year development process, they were overcome and construction started in late 2005. Mid-construction in 2007, Raleigh and Fifield saw weakness developing in the then booming condo market and executed a successful sale of the entire project to a Dubai-based developer.