I am actually very close with the family who owned Sunset Bowl (used to be Clairemont Bowl). I worked for the owner for several years while finishing college and beyond as part of their property development team and know pretty intimately the details of the sale to William Lyon.
William Lyon is in the hole for well over $15 million on this project just for the property. Yes, $15 mil! I’d say the old owner did very well. He now has other investment projects in LaJolla, Hawaii, and Birdrock. He had a large vacation rental property (about 13 units) called Ecco Sands down in Mission Beach that he flipped in a year for quite a bit of money as well.
Anyway, Sunset Cove is priced probably more out of necessity than anything else, as William Lyon bought right when everything was ramping up in the RE world and in my opinion, WAY overpaid for the property.
This purchase actually began way back in 2002-2003. There were a lot of contingencies going on regarding “if” the city counsel would allow the sale in the first place as it was being converted from a business to a residential area. Also, William Lyon had to cover some financial obligations of the Bowl for possible damage to business from the announcement of a sale. Bowling Alleys rely heavily on leagues for income and when a bowl announces that it will be selling (and closing), then all of these leagues have to find somewhere else to bowl. If the sale did not/could not happen for any reason, Sunset Bowl’s business would have been severely damaged.
As for the neighborhood, it is a strange mix of nice and not so nice. The large rental complex just north of Sunset Cove just went through a major revamping, but it’s still basically low-rent housing. The complex to the south is also all rentals. They tried a condo conversion, but bailed out when the market turned last year. Probably hurt too as they had pretty much cleared out all of their renters by that time. Oops! I have a really hard time seeing high $500’s for these places given their location and the high density of the complex in general. I think they have plans for over 70 units on that lot. All of them 3bd with garages.
All in all (and no offence intended) it’s still Clairemont and $500k+ for a townhouse is just ridiculous.
