Medical hub to spur Valley's economy

Courtesy: Jim Skeen AVPress Nov 10 2016 LANCASTER - A plan to turn the area around Antelope Valley Hospital into a "Medical Main Street" will help keep talent from leaving the region and will spur economic development, city officials said Wednesday. The city wants to create a medical and healthy lifestyle hub on roughly 360 acres around the hospital. The area includes about 100 vacant acres, of which roughly 40% are owned by the hospital, which is partnering with the city on the effort. During a presentation before the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce, Councilman Raj Mahli talked about how area students leave the valley to attend college and do not return. As an example, Mahli said two of his high school friends left the valley and became doctors and never returned. Medical Main Street will create a desirable area that will give students a reason to return after college, he said. "My high school buddies aren't coming here," Mahli said. "What I really hope is when my son and his friends graduate from high school and go away that they will come back and work in this community." The area the city is looking at stretches from 20th Street West to east of 12th Street West at Avenue J, and from north of Avenue J to the shopping center on 15th Street West north of Avenue K that contains offices of High Desert Medical Group. "Today the hospital is very isolated," said Chenin Dow, a management analyst with the city. "We would like to bring dining opportunities, shopping opportunities and also housing opportunities for the doctors and nurses." The city has approximately $13 million in grant funding secured for the initial improvements to the area. Sargent Town Planning, a Los Angeles-based firm that specializes in urban planning and designs that emphasize pedestrian- and transit-oriented neighborhoods, has been hired to prepare a master plan and environmental impact report for the project. The planning work is about 40% complete and will take about a year to 18 months to finish, said Vern Lawson Jr., Lancaster's economic development director. Sargent will also prepare an economic analysis for the project. The hospital already employs about 2,500 workers, Lawson said. "I would expect to double that," Lawson said. "We certainly have room to grow. We've always been the center of medical in the Antelope Valley and we want to make sure we continue that and that we shift with the times. I think this plan does that."

AV Sees Double-digit Home Price Gains

This is a reprint of an AV Press Article By: Jim Skeen AV Press PALMDALE - Lancaster and Palmdale neighborhoods saw double-digit home price gains in August, according to a report from CoreLogic. Lancaster's 93534 ZIP code had a median home price of $185,000 in August (57 sales), up 13.3% over the year. Lancaster's 93535 ZIP code had a median home price of $200,000 (98 sales), up 17.6%. Lancaster's 93536 ZIP code had a median price of $300,000 (122 sales), up 10.5%. Palmdale's 93550 ZIP code had a median home price of $220,000 (75 sales) in August, up 13.4% over the year. Palmdale's 93551 ZIP code had a median price of $336,000 (111 sales), up 10.2%. Palmdale's 93552 ZIP code had a median price of $259,000 (65 sales), up 19.4% over the year. Earlier this month, the Greater Antelope Valley Association of Realtors reported there were 517 homes sold in August in the region, a 4% increase over August 2015. Through August, 3,523 homes were sold in the Antelope Valley, down slightly from the 3,535 recorded at this point in 2015. The average selling price of an Antelope Valley home in August was $263,505, up 15% over August 2015. The average selling price of an Antelope Valley home so far this year is $244,038, up 10% from this point in 2015. Of the August transactions, 3% were foreclosures and 2% were short sales. In a separate report, CoreLogic reported there were 23,278 new and existing homes sold in Southern California in August, the highest tally for that month in a decade. The region's sales were up 9.5% over the year. In Los Angeles County, 7,725 new and existing homes were sold, a 5.4% year-over-year increase. The median price of a Southern California home was $465,000 in August, a 6.2% increase over the year. In the county, the median price was $530,000, a 6% increase. "Job growth, low interest rates, household formation and other factors helped drive up activity," said Andrew LePage, an analyst with CoreLogic. "The big picture is that the housing market continues to edge back toward normalcy in the wake of the worst housing bust in modern history." Existing homes in California sold at a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 420,360 units in August, down 2.2% from a year earlier, according to a report from the California Association of Realtors. August was the sixth straight month of year-over-year sales declines. The median price of an existing, single-family California home in August was $526,580, up 5.8% from August 2015. The association's Unsold Inventory Index, which indicates the number of months needed to sell the supply of homes on the market at the current sales rate dipped from 3.6 months in both July and August 2015 to 3.4 months this August. Nationally, existing homes sold at an annualized pace of 5.33 million in August, down 0.9% from July, but up 0.8% from August 2015, according to a report from the National Association of Realtors. "Healthy labor markets in most the country should be creating a sustained demand for home purchases," said Lawrence Yun, the national association's chief economist. "However, there's no question that after peaking in June, sales in a majority of the country have inched backwards because inventory isn't picking up to tame price growth and replace what's being quickly sold." Nationally, the unsold inventory is at a 4.6-month supply. A six- to seven-month supply is considered normal. The median existing-home price for all housing types in August was $240,200, up 5.1% from August 2015 ($228,500). August's price increase marks the 54th consecutive month of year-over-year gains, the association reported. Distressed sales - foreclosures and short sales - accounted for 5% of August transactions, the lowest percentage since the association began tracking that data in October 2008.

The Silicon Sky is the Antelope Valley

This is a reprint of an article from the AVPress by Jim Keen After suffering more than its fair share of down time, the Antelope Valley is on the upswing and the outlook for its leading industry, aerospace, is bright. In an essay titled "The Unfolding of Silicon Sky," economist Christopher Thornberg notes the Antelope Valley suffered through hard times in the 1990s from defense cutbacks and was hit hard than most areas in the housing market bust of the Great Recession. "The good news is that the Antelope Valley is on an upward swing and clearly recovering from the recession," Thornberg wrote in the essay, which appears in the 2016 Economic Roundtable Report produced by the Greater Antelope Valley Economic Alliance, or GAVEA. Thornberg is the founder of Beacon Economics and has been a frequent visitor to the Antelope Valley. Thornberg says signs of that upswing include home prices that are increasing at a 9% pace, falling unemployment, taxable sales growing at a healthy 5% rate, population growth holding steady at just under 1%, and overall job growth being at just above 2%. "While new construction remains subdued locally, growing unaffordability in the core areas of Los Angeles will undoubtedly create a new surge in local demand over the next few years," Thornberg wrote. The biggest bright spot is aerospace. "This isn't your father's aerospace industry, back when gutsy test pilots and bigger jet engines defined the industry," Thornberg wrote. "Today, it is all about material sciences and advanced computer technology." Thornberg notes some of the industry's recent milestones, including billionaire Paul Allen opting to build a giant airplane in Mojave to launch satellites into space, Northrop Grumman winning the contract to develop America's next bomber, and activity by the Air Force and the Navy in redesigning major weapon systems in the region. "All of these efforts require massive R&D activity and extensive high-tech supply chains - bringing in a new wave of suppliers and sub-contractors. These will be high-tech firms with highly skilled employees and represent an opportunity for the area to become a high-tech hub," Thornberg wrote. The key for the region is to make it as easy as possible for these companies and workers to come to the Antelope Valley, Thornberg said. The region will also need to make sure the area is a place where tech workers would want to live by improving education, expanding entertainment and retail options, and making space for high-end housing, Thornberg said.

California High-Speed Rail Authority Making Its Case in Developing the Route

The high speed rail authority is make a case for the rail system based on population projections of an increase in 12 million new inhabitants in the State by 2040. They propose that the rail system will be in place from San Francisco to Los Angeles by 2029. They have only started construction on the first 29 miles of the system began in January, and the will be building their first river crossing bridge over the Fresno River soon. An AV Press article stated from an event that the alignments for the two portions of the system going through the Antelope Valley Have not been determined. They do have a plan from Bakersfield over the Tehachapi Mountains, and from there into the northern end of Lancaster still needs to be determined. They did indicate they wanted to avoid the wind turbines and any mining so at least that is a hint. They said they will run along Sierra Highway, which is where the existing railroad track is located. According to the AVPress article: There are four major routes, plus a couple of sub-routes, being looked at between Palmdale and Burbank. The original proposals paralleled the Antelope Valley Freeway (Hwy 14) between Acton and Santa Clarita, but new alternatives include underground routes proposed to tunnel through the San Gabriel Mountains with the aim of avoiding opponents in the Acton area and the Santa Clarita Valley. And then there is the cost which is estimated to be $68 Billion. The rail authority’s case against this cost is that it will cost $158 Billion if they created new highways, expanding airports, and made new roads. So $68 Billion sounds like a bargain. It maybe a tough sell either way as the costs to do nothing will likely be congestion. If you own land along Sierra Hwy at some point you may get an offer letter, but it still maybe decades away as we don’t see a system in place by 2029 from SF to LA.