Kevin Ratner Quotations

Forest City by nature and by history is not a condo developer. We're looking for cash flow because we're a public company, but we also like to own properties for a long time. The idea was that we were going to build the first new loft building. There will always be people who want to rent and people who want to buy.

We have had lots of different conversations with people but now that the apartments are done it will help them with their vision of what the property could be. As other stuff comes around us, the parking lot to the south of us is being looked at by a developer and these buildings across the street are for sale, it's just a matter of time before this area transforms.

We ran into lots of foundations that we didn't know were there. We found an oil well and wound up pulling a lot of dirty soil out of there, which was more expensive. We had to take it to a special dump, and then get the dirt clean to build on it. So we lost about eight months just getting started on the garage.

I like Downtown and would like to build more Downtown. But a lot of it depends on the economy. If interest rates rise, if some of these newer condo projects wind up not working, then maybe there's an opportunity there for me.

The problems we had going in had to do with the fact that the building was old and we had to put in new systems - mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire life safety. Trying to fit that back in and trying to get the Fire Department to sign off was hard.

We've been working in Downtown for over 35 years. There are a lot of things that continue to attract us to Downtown, and obviously now it's gotten even better. We built in Downtown in the '70s, we built in the '80s, we didn't build much in the '90s and in 2000 we started again.

There's not a ton of new housing going up, and there are a lot of people who like the Downtown experience, who like high-rise living. And unless you go to the Wilshire Corridor there's not a lot of places to buy. It's becoming a real neighborhood.