Hunts Sell Off Batiquitos Site to Industrialist

The high-profile Texas Hunt brothers, Nelson Bunker and W. Herbert, have sold their 1,400-acre holding on the northern shore of Carlsbad’s Batiquitos Lagoon to low-profile Henry Lee Hillman, a Pittsburgh industrialist ranked by Forbes Magazine as one of the 20 wealthiest men in the United States.

Larry Clemens, who headed the Pacific Rim Country Club and Resort project for the Hunts, said Friday that he will remain as operations chief of the development with the title of vice president of Newport Beach-based Hillman Properties.

Clemens refused Friday to confirm the purchase price of $72.2 million indicated by transfer tax stamps. He said the buyer and seller had agreed to keep the financial details private.

No Change in Plans

However, Clemens said, the resort-residential project will remain exactly as planned by the Hunts and approved recently by Carlsbad city officials and the state Coastal Commission. The sale won’t affect the restoration of Batiquitos Lagoon, he said. The Port of Los Angeles and Pacific Texas Pipeline Co. have agreed to pay for a $20-million dredging and cleanup of the coastal lagoon as mitigation for destruction of sensitive wetlands by a landfill project in San Pedro Bay.

About $1 billion in housing, a resort hotel, convention rooms and Olympic athletic facilities will be built on the property over the next decade. The first phase of development by Hillman Properties will include 1,500 homes, a 254-unit hotel, an 18-hole golf course to be designed by Arnold Palmer, aquatic sports facilities and public improvements, including a $12-million east-west access road, school and park sites.

Clemens announced the sale of the property at a news conference Friday, saying the negotiations began about six weeks ago. Escrow opened a week ago and closed Thursday afternoon, he said, “the quickest escrow for a property of this size that I’ve ever seen.”

Terms of the sale include Hillman Properties’ agreement to stick to the development agreements approved by the Carlsbad City Council and state Coastal Commission, Clemens said. Eventually, he said, 2,836 residential units will be built, about 60% of them detached homes ranging in price from $350,000 to $1 million.

Bigger Than La Costa

Grading is expected to begin in July for land preparation on six residential neighborhoods, the hotel and golf course. The Pacific Rim development, just east of Interstate 5 on the southern Carlsbad boundary, will surpass its neighbor, La Costa, in size and cost, Clemens said.

He said that Hillman’s plans also include hosting Olympic athletes training in aquatic sports if San Diego becomes the site of an all-weather Olympic training center in 1991.

Clemens said that Hillman interests, which Forbes Magazine estimates to exceed $1.5 billion, have increasingly gone into real estate investments in recent years.

Hillman, who values his privacy highly, is not expected to live in his Pacific Rim development, Clemens said.