Real estate developer Shaul Kuba specializes in elevating neighborhoods on the cusp of a comeback, and he’s been part of some big ones.
He led revivals of the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica in the 1990s, central Hollywood soon after that and now L.A.’s West Adams district east of Culver City.
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The best outcome of development, as Kuba sees it, is to improve the appeal of distinct districts, something that requires erecting or renovating buildings close enough to one another to create a more energetic neighborhood vibe and raise property values. One nice building is not enough to effect change.
“Small investments just get swallowed if there is not more to follow,” he said.
Transformations can be unwelcome to people who like their neighborhoods the way they are and fear being priced out. There is, of course, a term for this: gentrifier, a label that Kuba, 61, resists but that critics in West Adams, a historically Black and Latino neighborhood, have affixed to him. In West Adams, his company, Kuba said, is mostly reclaiming empty buildings and vacant lots on commercial streets such as Adams Boulevard, raising values for longtime property owners.
“All of a sudden the real estate market in West Adams is becoming a real viable market of buyers and sellers,” he said.
Since 1994, CIM Group, the company Kuba co-founded with Richard Ressler and Kuba’s high school and Israeli army buddy Avi Shemesh, has owned, managed or developed more than 200 office, retail, residential and hotel properties in the Los Angeles area. He still speaks of it with the zeal of a convert.
“There is something very extraordinary in Los Angeles when you come here,” he said. “It just grabs you because there is so much to do and so many opportunities here that you just feel like it’s a never-ending process. It keeps wanting more and more, if you can give it.”
Another current CIM project in Hollywood is a short stretch of Sycamore Avenue where hip-hop power couple Beyoncé and Jay-Z have their offices in an old warehouse. Kuba has converted other former industrial buildings into trendy restaurants, art galleries and upmarket retailers not found elsewhere in Los Angeles.
As a concrete-making plant churned noisily nearby, Kuba shared his plans to replace the plant with apartments and make a few other improvements before the area’s rising property values make it less of a bargain to build.
“We like to reach a plateau of value creation,” he said. “Then it’s time for us to focus on other neighborhoods that need help.”
