I’ve commented on Liberty Station several times – short answer to your question: “No, I don’t believe the upside to the location will make up for the potential loss in equity” – even the detached boxes in Liberty Station are just fancy condos – don’t be fooled into thinking of them as single-family homes – the prices of condos throughout San Diego are going to sink like a rock and the housing in Liberty Station is more condo-like than SFR-like – here are my comments from the archives:

~

One of my properties was near NTC / Liberty Station so I kept a close eye on the development there.

Navy records show 50-60 toxic hot spots on the property and there are questions about how well these sites were cleaned up.

The most telling point to me is that McMillan trucked in six feet of clean topsoil before building on the home sites. Wouldn’t want anyone to test the soil in their front yard now would we?

McMillan told the city that he needed the extra height so the sewage would drain which is interesting since none of the historic buildings are being raised but I assume they will have bathrooms in them???

Here’s a website that tracks ongoing issues at Liberty Station: http://www.ntcsd.org/ – spend some time at this site if you want to see how badly the city and McMillan are screwing the public on this deal.

~

I was jogging through Liberty Station this morning (used to be NTC in Pt Loma) and noticed numerous For Sale signs.

I assume that most of these houses were bought by speculators and they are now bailing.

These houses had been selling for as high as $1.3 mil but they aren’t anymore.

I have been watching one in particular that came on the market just under $1.1 mil back in Oct/Nov of 2005. It is still on the market today – asking price is $899K.

~

The houses in Liberty Station are so close together you could borrow a cup of sugar from your neighbor by sticking your hand out the kitchen window.

I watched these things being built in 2004 and I was amazed that people were paying $800+K for them.

Even more amazed when they started turning over at $1+ mil.

Not surprising that many of them are currently For Sale.

Remember that these fine homes are just a few blocks from being under the flight path and they also get to enjoy the road noise from Rosecrans / Nimitz / Harbor Blvd along with the Navy jets on North Island.

Not to mention that McMillan had to remediate the hazardous waste at NTC before he started building these homes.

~

I took another swing thru Liberty Station this morning.

There are 16 For Sale signs with one of them flying a SOLD sign.

There are 209 detached boxes in Liberty Station so currently, 7% of the development is for sale. Anyone know how this compares to other developments around town?

Interestingly, ALL of the streets have at least one box for sale and some of the streets have as many as 4.

~

Interesting factoid about Liberty Station: McMillan didn’t want to remediate the contaminated topsoil from the home sites so he trucked in 6 feet of clean topsoil before laying foundations.

Told the city that he needed the extra height so the sewage would drain!

Not to mention that he was then allowed to build up to the 30′ height max after starting from the new raised ground.

~

Don’t get me wrong about Liberty Station.

This property will be a gem in San Diego’s crown once all of the development is complete.

From my perception however, there are 209 FB’s living there and we haven’t even discussed the multi-unit crap (oops, I mean condos) that was built.