Green Courte Partners Closes it's Third Fund

Oct 24 |10:12

 

 

THE DEVELOPER OF HOWELSEN PLACE AND ALPEN GLOW, GREEN COURTE PARTNERS, CLOSES ITS THIRD FUND - RAISES EQUITY TO FUND $1.2 BILLION IN NICHE REAL ESTATE INVESTMENTS

Lake Forest, Illinois, September 21, 2011 –
Green Courte Partners, LLC ("Green Courte"), a private equity investment firm targeting niche real estate sectors, announced today the closing of its third investment fund, Green Courte Real Estate Partners III, LLC ("GCREP III"). This $406.9 million fund will employ institutional levels of leverage to invest in approximately $1.2 billion of niche real estate, including land-lease communities and parking assets. GCREP III will continue the strategies of the firm’s first two funds, Green Courte Real Estate Partners, LLC and Green Courte Real Estate Partners II, LLC, which to date have invested in over $1.1 billion of niche real estate investments.

Green Courte was founded in 2002 by Randall K. Rowe. Previously, Mr. Rowe held senior roles at several successful real estate investment and operating companies, including Chairman of Transwestern Investment Company, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Hometown America, as well as various senior positions with Equity Group Investments. Green Courte’s senior partner team includes: James R. Goldman, Vice Chairman and Chief Investment Officer; Robert S. Duncan, Managing Director, Retail Investments; Kelly L. Stonebraker, Managing Director, General Counsel; Stephen F. Douglass, Managing Director, Asset Management; Michael A. Tarkington, Managing Director, Chief Accounting Officer; David B. Lentz, Managing Director; Steven E. Ehrlich, Managing Director, Deputy General Counsel; Mark E. Scully, Managing Director; Randy L. Kotler, Managing Director; Jane E. Mody, Managing Director, Chief Financial Officer; Keith A. Bawolek, Managing Director, Parking Acquisitions; and Arthur A. Greenberg, Managing Director, Senior Tax Advisor.

Regarding the new fund, Mr. Rowe commented, "We are delighted to have completed the fundraising for GCREP III in this challenging market and are honored that almost all of our investors in the prior two funds have decided to invest in GCREP III. We are also pleased to have several new institutional investors join us in GCREP III. We look forward to investing the capital consistent with our niche real estate strategies and will work diligently to generate attractive, risk-adjusted returns for our investors."

   

Welcome to Bike Town USA

Sep 29 |12:43

Welcome to Bike Town USA

   Outside Magazine

The USA Pro Cycling Challenge comes to SteamboatSteamboat was the only town awarded both a USA Pro Cycling Challenge start and finish.
Photo courtesy of David Dietrich Photography.

I was skeptical when I heard that Steamboat Springs, the low-key ski town in the rolling hills of northwest Colorado, is christening itself Bike Town USA. Colorado is chock full of both great riding (from the laugh-out-loud desert tracks in Fruita to miles of trail strung over Crested Butte's high alpine) and devoted bike towns (Colorado Springs has the Olympic Training Center, and Boulder just finished its state-of-the-art bike park). No matter how good the riding, it was hard to imagine that Steamboat could out-bike the rest of the state. But I'd never ridden there, so late this summer I headed north.

The Monday morning I rolled into town, Andy Schleck, who was spending the week in Steamboat as preparation for the USA Pro Cycling Challenge, had planned a community ride. Though the 10 a.m. event was only announced in the daily paper that morning, some 500 local cycling fanatics mobbed the streets, and a police escort had to be called in to manage the massive peloton. Only a truly bike-crazy place could turn out nearly five percent of the population in short order on a work day for a ride. The event proved another point: While many mountain towns in Colorado have excellent trail riding but lack options for roadies, Steamboat's rolling hill country and confluence of quiet country lanes make the skinny-tire riding as good as the fat.

Over the next week, I pedaled all over Steamboat's roads and trails. At Howelsen Hill, the local ski knoll fronting town, I met a couple of groups from the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club summer riding program, which gets around 150 kids age 8 to 18 out on the Emerald Mountain singletrack each week. It was refreshing to see schoolkids encouraged in something other than the standard American football-basketball-baseball trifecta, especially when the "coaches" are professional and retired pro cyclists (think Rishi Grewal, Tammy Jacques, and Kelly Boniface). Next up was Steamboat ski resort, a few miles southeast of town, where I saw the in-progress plans for a state-of-the-art bike park being constructed by Gravity Logic, the company that built Whistler's legendary riding infrastructure. Cory Pregor, from local business Honey Stinger, showed me around some of the mountain's existing 28.4 miles and even got permission for us to ride a few of the lift-served downhill flow trails, scheduled to open with phase one of the bike park next summer. Finally, Rob Mitchell, president of Steamboat-based Moots cycles, took me on a half-day tour of the new 13-mile singletrack loop on the back side of Emerald Mountain, trail that had debuted just a few weeks earlier at the sold-out inaugural 50-mile Steamboat Stinger Mountain Bike Race. Even at dinner that night, a classy little small plates eatery called Bistro CV, when the sommelier found out I was a cyclist he plied me with trail beta.

The local peloton in Steamboat Springs ColoradoSteamboat's local peloton. Photo courtesy of the Steamboat Chamber of Commerce.

Bike Town USA is definitely a marketing initiative, but it's refreshing to find a place with the soul and the cred to back up the claims. There are over 500 miles of trail in the vicinity of Steamboat, two boutique bike manufacturers in town (Moots and Eriksen), well-subscribed weekly road and mountain bike race series in summer, and even a small cadre of schoolboys who ride unicycles to school every day. To showcase it all, the city is hosting the Steamboat 2011 Bike Summit this weekend (9/29-10/1), with community rides, trail building and bike maintenance clinics, a screening of the movie Pedal Driven, and lots of other two-wheeled fun.

Though I'd never presume to say that Steamboat has the best riding of anywhere in the US, I do know that I'll be heading back next summer to sample a few more of the 500 miles of trail. And if you think you know of somewhere more deserving of the Bike Town USA moniker, I'd love to hear about it.

--Aaron Gulley

   

Leif Hovelsen, son of the legendary Carl Howelsen, dies at 88

Sep 20 |09:52

Leif Hovelsen, son of the legendary Carl Howelsen, dies at 88

By Tom Ross for the Steamboat Pilot Monday, September 19, 2011

Steamboat Springs — Leif Hovelsen, the Norwegian pacifist whose trips to Steamboat Springs throughout the years have provided the community with a link to the roots of its competitive skiing tradition, died at 2 a.m. Oslo time Sunday. He was 88.

Friends said his energy level had been flagging since spring, but he wasn’t diagnosed with advance-stage leukemia until six weeks ago.
Hovelsen was the son of Carl Howelsen, who came to Steamboat Springs in 1913 and established the remote community’s first Winter Carnival in 1914. He taught many local youngsters how to ski jump. Leif (pronounced “Life”) visited Steamboat many times during his adult life to reconnect with the town that continues to honor his father’s memory.

J.P. Nelson, of Menlo Park, Calif., one of many of Hovelsen’s godchildren, said Monday that, at first, Hovelsen had difficulty accepting the diagnosis he received Aug. 7. But in his last days, letters and visits from friends across the world comforted Hovelsen.

“People came from all over Europe to see him,” Nelson said. “He was cheered for that, and he became quite peaceful. His last words were, ‘At last, I am ready.’”
Hovelsen was 85 in February 2009 when he came to Steamboat and took his role as Grand Marshal in the Winter Carnival parade. He long felt a close connection with Steamboat’s generations of Olympic Nordic combined skiers, who represent the embodiment of his father’s influence on the history of skiing here. And he lived to celebrate the Olympic medals they claimed in 2010.

Carl Howelsen was a champion ski jumper in his native Norway and in the United States. He won Norway’s King’s Cup for Nordic combined skiing in 1903, making him a celebrity in his homeland.

Nelson said that on a visit to California, Hovelsen had entrusted him with the care of his father’s trophy from the famed Holmenkollen Nordic festival outside Norway.
Howelsen essentially introduced Colorado to recreational skiing, and a year after establishing a ski carnival in Hot Sulphur Springs, he moved to Steamboat in 1913, where he remained for nine years.

His son made a lasting contribution to ski history here in 1984 when Hovelsen wrote “The Flying Norseman,” an account of his father’s life and his role in promoting skiing in North America. Carl Howelsen’s influence was widespread, including establishing a ski jumping club in Chicago and touring the country with Barnum and Bailey’s Greatest Show on Earth. His brief stint under the giant circus tent included a triumphant indoor ski jumping performance in Madison Square Garden in March 1907.
However, to describe Leif Hovelsen simply as his father’s son would not do the man justice. As a teenager during World War II, he smuggled radio parts out of Oslo to members of the resistance fighting Nazi occupation. Betrayed by a friend as a 20-year-old, he survived imprisonment.
Later in life, he worked through an organization called Moral Re-Armament to encourage cooperation among the nations of the world. Hovelsen re-edited his original papers into a book about the subject.

Hovelsen was thrilled in 2009 to see a life-sized bronze statue of his father installed at the entrance to Howelsen Place at the corner of Lincoln Avenue and Seventh Street.

   

Vacation Homes: Why It May Be Time to Buy

Jul 25 |09:11

 

Vacation Homes:Why It May Be Time to Buy
By JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG for the Wall Street Journal

The clouds hanging over upscale vacation-home markets are starting to lift. While prices are still falling in most regions, the luxury segment is picking up, and brokers are reporting more inquiries than they have had in years.
The upshot: If you have the money and plan on staying put for the long term, now may be a good time to buy.
Five years after housing's peak, markets that once were out of sight even for well-heeled buyers are now in range. On Hilton Head Island, S.C., a three-bedroom home nestled between the Atlantic Ocean and Calibogue Sound changed hands in April for $750,000, after having sold for $1.2 million in June 2006. In Vail, Colo., a three-bedroom home that fetched $3.3 million in 2008 sold in February for $2.5 million.
Overall, the median second-home price was $150,000 in 2010, down 11% from 2009 and roughly 25% from 2006, according to the National Association of Realtors. That isn't pretty, but it is only slightly worse than the 22% drop for the overall housing market. The higher end of the market—homes in the $5 million-plus range—has held up better, says Douglas Duncan, chief economist at Fannie Mae. "At the top of the market, particularly luxury homes, prices have proven very elastic, and have sprung upward quickly," he says.
Buyers are taking heed. On Palm Beach Island, Fla., sales were up 50% in the year ending June 30. Transactions in the Hamptons, on New York's Long Island, jumped 59% in the second quarter from a year earlier. In Aspen, Colo., sales for the year ending May 31 were up 10%.
The number of people looking at properties is up as well: In Vail, Hilton Head and Palm Beach, foot traffic has jumped by at least 30% this year, according to local real-estate agents. "People have frugality fatigue," says John Burns, president of John Burns Real Estate Consulting Inc. in Irvine, Calif.
This isn't to suggest the boom is back. In general, properties situated in prime locations—on the water or near a ski slope—are selling well, but homes in less desirable spots are languishing on the market. Banks are increasingly wary of making second-home mortgages, particularly "jumbo" loans above federally guaranteed limits; 10% of banks raised their standards on such loans last year, according to the Federal Reserve. And the tax deduction for mortgage interest on second homes is at risk of being cut back.
Geography is the best guide to today's vacation markets: In some places prices are holding up, while in others they are still tanking.
The blue-chip market consists of a handful of spots where prices have stabilized and could soon rebound as sales pick up. Some, such as Hilton Head, have benefitted from tough restrictions on building, which kept inventories manageable during the bust. Prices there have risen by 4% during the past year.
The other market is still very much in crash mode. In places like Miami, Fla. and even Martha's Vineyard, Mass., prices have continued to drop as foreclosed properties flood the market. But bargains abound as sellers cut their asking prices or accept less to unload properties. In March, for example, a three-bedroom home on Palm Beach Island, Fla., listed for $4.6 million sold for just $2.5 million.
With the broader housing market still so sick, it might seem the height of folly to jump into such unpredictable investments now. Even in blue-chip markets there isn't a guarantee of price appreciation anytime soon. Indeed, over time vacation-home markets don't do noticeably better than primary-home markets. Homes on Martha's Vineyard appreciated by 40.9% over the past 10 years, edging out Boston's 40.5%. But Hilton Head's 15% gain was trounced by nearby Charleston, S.C.'s 25.4% rise.
Then again, most vacation-home buyers aren't looking to make big investment profits. More than 80% of second-home buyers surveyed by the National Association of Realtors in May reported that they bought for consumption reasons—to live in the house and enjoy it.
And many second-home buyers are wealthy enough to pay in cash, sidestepping the restrictive and time-consuming mortgage process. Last year, 36% of vacation-home transactions were all-cash deals, up from 29% in 2009, according to the National Association of Realtors. "If you have cash right now, you are in unique position," says Paul
Dales, senior U.S economist with research firm Capital Economics.

   

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