Nearly two months ago, a brokerage shakeup occurred at Greenland USA’s $1 billion Metropolis development in Downtown Los Angeles. New York-based Douglas Elliman lost the project for reasons that remain unclear.
It didn’t take long for the Agency, a boutique brokerage co-founded by Mauricio Umansky and Billy Rose, to swoop in and snag the contract to sell the1,500-unit condo project, which is spread across three towers. After a few quiet months, the Agency has now revealed the development group that will tackle the 2.1 million-square-foot project at 889 Francisco Street.
The permanent sales team for Metropolis includes Sheridan Mantor, Mark Sanchez, Lisa Fittipaldi, Annie Leung and Linna Yi, The Real Deal has learned. Mantor will serve as director of sales, while Sanchez and Fittipaldi hold senior sales associate positions. Leung, who previously worked for Douglas Elliman, was hired for a sales associate position on the team. Yi will serve as transaction coordinator.
Mantor, Sanchez and Fittipaldi were previously working with Polaris Pacific and Trumark Urban, selling units at TEN50, a 22-story, 151-unit luxury high-rise at 1050 S. Grand Avenue in Downtown. Mike Leipart, managing partner at the Agency, said the first strategic step was to hire a team with significant experience in the DTLA market.
Greenland completed its 308-unit Tower 1 and 350-key hotel tower earlier this year. Roughly 80 percent of Tower 1 has sold, Leipart said (Elliman claims it sold over two-thirds of the units before the Agency took over). The Agency’s team is currently pre-selling Tower 2, set to include 514 residences. The entire project is slated to be fully complete by 2019.
Industry observers have questioned whether there is enough demand to satisfy the flurry of units entering the DTLA market in recent years. As of June, roughly 3,000 luxury apartment units were under construction in the area, and nearly 4,000 more are slated to be built next year. The rising supply, coupled with a rising vacancy rate and a retreat from Chinese buyers, hasn’t exactly helped brokers sell luxury vertical living.