The Birth of the Permanent Home for the Taiwanese American Community Center of San Diego 聖地牙哥台灣中心

Jinwun Winston Lue

On a sunny afternoon in early March of 2008 after a golf game, Kun-Mu Chen (陳坤木) asked me to drive by a site off Mira Mesa Boulevard. Taiwanese American Foundation of San Diego (TAFSD) Permanent Site Search Committee Chair, Sam Wu (吳聖麒) had located a building at the corner of Waples Street and Huennekens Street as a potential site for the Taiwanese American Community Center (TACC). We went inside. The owner of the building was happy to know that we are interested in the building and showed us around. It was a tall warehouse building converted into a two story office building. The building was in very good shape. But we felt it would be hard to setup an auditorium we needed in it.

Soon after, the Search Committee decided not to proceed any further on that building. However the looking of that building re-kindled my interest in looking for buildings that I used to do in Knoxville, Tennessee where I did some rental house work before.

The following is a complete report of The Birth of the Taiwanese American Community Center of San Diego.

What Do I Know About the Purchasing and Remodeling of the San Diego Taiwan Center

Jinwun Winston Lue

June 28, 2012, Rev. September 24, 2012

Table of Contents

1. Getting Involved

(1) Permanent Site Searching Guideline & Committee

(2) Found a Building of Interest in Sorrento Mesa

(3) A Few Other Sites Located

(4) Viewridge Avenue Site

(5) Wilkerson Court Site

2. Purchasing Processes

(1) Negotiated to buy the Viewridge Buildings

(2) Zoning and Property Tax Issues

(3) Purchased the Wilkerson Court Building

3. Remodeling – Turned a Warehouse into Our Community Center

(1) Layout the Floor Plan

(2) Construction Plan and Permit Submission

(3) Ming-Shian Wu Assumed the General Contractor Position

(4) Construction Work Began

(5) Obtained Long-Delayed Construction Permit

(6) Finishing Remodeling Work

(7) Passed Final Inspection with the Help of Volunteer Engineers

(8) Moved into Our Own Building

4. Certificate of Occupancy Revoked and Re-issued

(1) City Revoked Our Certificate of Occupancy

(2) Made Improvements to Get the Certificate Again

5. Additional Constructions

(1) East Side Fence

(2) Deck

(3) Front Entrance Canopy

6. Disputes with the Contractors

(1) Glass Entry Door Contractor

(2) Steel Beam and Framing Contractor

(3) Construction Manager

7. Endnote

8. Attachments

1. Getting Involved

1-1 Permanent Site Searching Guideline & Committee

In 2007, before I joined the TAFSD Board, under the leadership of Ching-chih Chen (陳清池) and Chong-maw Chen (陳正茂) ,TAFSD Permanent Site Planning Committee concluded, after careful and lengthy discussions, with a guideline for the TACC permanent site as: 1) Location be within 5-mile radius of the then Center location (or between I-5 and I-15, north of Balboa Ave, and South of Mira Mesa Blvd); 2) Size of the building be from 10,000 to 12,000 square feet; 3) Price be around 3 million dollars; 4) Parking space be sufficient.

The Permanent Site Committee for 2008 was co-chaired by Sam Wu and Ming-Shian Wu (吳銘賢). It was understood that Sam, who was a licensed real estate broker, would be in charge of searching a suitable site for TACC. Ming-Shiang, who had the experiences of re-modeling and building 3 biotechnology research and production facilities, would take charge of remodeling the permanent Center after a building was acquired. Other members of the Search Subcommittee included Chiu-Shan Chen (陳秋山), Chong-Maw Chen, De Min Wu (吳得民), and Kun-Mu Chen.

1-2 Found a Building of Interest in Sorrento Mesa

Although the building at the corner of Waples Street and Huennekens Street was not suited for our usage, the campus atmosphere of the Sorrento Mesa Business Park that it situated in felt real good to me. Driving and looking around the park, I found a few more buildings for sale there. In particular, the online listing info showed another building one block east on Waples Street might satisfy our search guideline. In the absence of Sam, Chong-Maw (then TAFSD President) contacted the listing agent and asked quite a few of our people to go see the site. On a 3/27/08 Executive meeting, Chong-Maw reported that most of those who had a chance to view the 9670 Waples Street building had a favorable impression of the property. He also asked and got partial answers on some further details of the building, including the prior usage, the age, major repairs performed, heating and air system, and the vacant period, etc. The building had 16,500 sq.ft. of space, and was asking for $3,650,000. When our broker and Search Committee chair, Sam came back from travel in early April, he was told there was a contract on the building already. The escrow would be closed soon.

1-3 A Few Other Sites Located

The search for suitable sites for our Center continued online and by driving around. Another business – light industrial park that had nice campus atmosphere was found off Carroll Canyon Road just east of I-15. But no suitable size building was found. Sites off Miramar Road did not give good impressions.

In 2007 after the Permanent Site Planning Committee decided to go ahead with the purchase of a permanent site, Cindy Kasai (賴正秋), then a real estate agent (and a former Board member) located a few buildings off Miramar Road. Board members who toured the sites had similarly bad feelings on the heavier industrial environment there and decided against any further actions. Knowing that I was actively looking for a site for our Center, Cindy volunteered to help us again. She informed us available buildings in Balboa Ave – Mercury St area and on Nancy Ridge Ave. They did not look that attractive in driving by for me. A building on Clairemont Mesa Blvd, east of State Route 163 interested us. A group of our people went to see the building. We all liked the location, the parking spaces. But, Ming-Shian did not like to tear down the second floor or dig into the basement to setup an auditorium.

Cindy also provided valuable advises in our purchasing process later on.

1-4 Viewridge Avenue Site

In early April a building off Balboa Ave exit of I-15 was found online and looked nice outside. It was a one-story warehouse-office building of about 18,400 sq ft, and was listed for $4.08 M. More than thirty TACC patrons toured this building on 4870 Viewridge Ave at two occasions. Although the location was a little off, most of them had favorable impressions on the property, and asked the Board to proceed with acquiring this building.

While negotiating for further answer from the seller, we noticed the neighboring building was for sale, too. It was a little smaller of 16,900 sq ft, and was listed for $3.7 M. We liked this one better and proceeded to make an offer to purchase this property.

Both of these two sites had about 60 parking spaces. They would be sufficient for daily usage. Street parking is required for big events.

1-5 Wilkerson Court Site

In early July another building in Kearny Mesa area off Convoy St, just south of Balboa Ave was found to be even more suitable for our Center. It was a one-story warehouse of 13,200 sq ft. Except for 3,200 sq ft of offices at the store front, the rest of the 10,000 sq ft of the building was open warehouse space. It was selling for $2,765,000. The site had only 31 parking spaces of its own, but it is sitting in a Cul-de-Sac off a quiet street. There is plenty of street parking. After touring this site at 7838 Wilkerson Court on 7/16/2008, most of us liked the location, the size, and the price of this building. A quick decision was made to proceed with acquiring this property as our permanent TACC site.

2. Purchasing Processes

2-1 Negotiated to buy the Viewridge Buildings

Both of the buildings we looked at on Viewridge Ave were bigger than we needed, and the prices were higher than we could really afford. But the sale flyer of the first one (4870) indicated that the seller would lease back part of the building. The second one (4830) was partitioned into 4 suites of equal sizes. One side suite was leased out and might continue to be leased. De Min, Ming-Shian, and I did some future TACC expense projections, rough building remodeling cost estimate, possible lease income, and other financial analyses to see if it was feasible to purchase these buildings. The Search Committee and the Board went through lengthy discussions and concluded that it might work out alright for us and decided to negotiate with these two sellers.

On 4/25/2008 Sam delivered our first Letter-of-Intent (LOI) to the seller’s agent that began our purchasing processes. We made an initial offer of $3.4 M (list price was $4.08 M) and asked the seller to lease back about 8,000 sq ft office space for 5 years. The seller countered $4.0 M and 4,000 sq ft lease back for 2 yr. On 5/2/2008 we made a second offer of $3.5 M. The seller did not answer for a while. Then the seller asked us to meet with him in mid-May. At that time we had turned our interest to the neighboring building.

After carefully comparing the pros and cons of 4830 to the 4870 property, we made an offer of $3.35 M (list price was $3.7 M) to the seller of the 4830 Viewridge Ave building on 5/15/2008. Two more back-and-forth counters were made before we made a final offer of $3.48 M on 5/27/2008. A week later we were informed by the seller’s agent that the seller decided to sell that property to a different interested party.

Probably knowing we failed to acquire the 4830 building and how close it was for us to buy that property, the seller of the 4870 building asked us to meet with him on 6/18/2008. At the meeting we were surprised to learn that the seller was receptive of the last offer we made a month ago of $3.5 M. He was also willing to carry a mortgage of $120,000 to offset the rent of the 2-year lease back of part of the building. This would help us with the cash needed for the remodeling costs. But soon after, again the seller took a different offer than ours.

2-2 Zoning and Property Tax Issues

In the process of negotiating to purchase the Viewridge properties a zoning issue was raised. Could we use the building as a community center as we were buying for? Was there a special usage permit that we needed to apply for? We turned these touchy questions to then TACC Associate Director – Carol Ou Lin (歐春美).

Carol first found out online that a “Conditional Usage Permit” was needed only if the usage of the building is beyond the zoning ordinance. The properties we are interested in were in a light-industrial zoning (IL-2-1). She then contacted the city Development Services Department (DSD) and found out that there was nothing we needed to do in order to use that building as we planned to.

In August, right before we signed the sale contract with the Wilkerson Court seller, Carol contacted the city DSD again. She got Connie Diaz, a Plan Review Specialist that she talked to earlier to write back: “For IL-2-1, the proposed use falls under Assembly and Entertainment. Per Land Development Code Section 131.0622, Table 131-06B shows this is a permitted use.”

Since TAFSD/TACC is a no-profit organization, an exemption of the property tax would be a long-term significant savings for our operation. Carol called the State Board of Equalization and San Diego County Assessor office to find out the procedures to apply for such a tax exemption. She then single-handedly took care of applying for an Organizational Clearance Certificate number from the State Board of Equalization. With that number she got the County Assessor Office to approve our Welfare Exemption Claim. This Claim needs be filed by our tax filing person to the County annually to continue our exemption status.

2-3 Purchased the Wilkerson Court Building

Source from Winston Lue