'Developer with a social conscience': Wayne Ratkovich makes his mark with historic - and profitable - renovations.

The rules of the development game are different in Wayne's world. And during better times, Wayne Ratkovich's challenging renovation and redevelopment projects have generated praise, as well as profits.

"Wayne has really made his mark on the local real estate scene" through painstaking renovations of landmarks such as the Wilshire Center district's Wiltern Theatre/Pellissier Building and downtown L.A.'s Oviatt and Fine Arts buildings, comments preservation architect Scott Field.

"He's considered a true pioneer and is well respected within the preservation community," the Parkinson Field Associates principal continues. "We really need more people like Wayne who are willing to take a chance and be the first to take on a renovation project" in a neglected local community.

Amid today's depressed market conditions, however, Ratkovich's high-risk approach seems temporarily hung up, with three ambitious L.A. County "urban renewal" development ventures semi-stalled.

While high-reward profits remain on hold as well during the real estate recession, Ratkovich and the communities he works with nevertheless receive significant returns on the developer's investments, says veteran local builder Craig Ruth.

"Wayne sees greater value in a project's long-term significance -- in how a renovation can help revive a community -- than in short-term profits," the Tooley & Co. president stresses. For example, the Wiltern's concert performances are a big draw for its neighborhood, and the Oviatt and Fine Arts renovations have spearheaded subsequent efforts to revitalize downtown's historic districts, Ruth specifies.

Ratkovich's activities have inspired his somewhat contradictory reputation as "a developer with a social conscience." He's even supported California's slow-growth movement and makes a point of polling a prospective project's neighbors "to find out what they'd like to see developed," the bespectacled builder boasts.

His family's modest economic means and his political science studies at UCLA during the tumultuous 1960s may help explain Ratkovich's emphasis on social as well as financial rewards.

Upon graduating, "I wanted work that would provide some social benefits," Ratkovich recalls. "But I'd been poor all my life, so I also wanted to make a lot of money," he confesses.

As his career activities progressed from traditional business-space development toward the more challenging renovation discipline, Ratkovich has been inspired by a prominent developer who has profitably revitalized decaying sections of several U.S. cities. Jim Rouse, who founded The Rouse Co. and now heads Enterprise Development Co., has transformed declining districts such Baltimore's Inner Harbor and Boston's Faneuil Hall into thriving marketplaces.

Accordingly, Ratkovich is thrilled to be teaming up with Rouse on the ambitious "Pike" mixed-use project slated for the Long Beach waterfront. While the down market has kept Pike's ground unbroken, the planned project represents something of an ideal venture in Ratkovich's mind. Perfection derives from a combination social benefits, financial rewards and creative inspiration -- not necessarily in that order -- he explains.

"Our attention is always riveted on entrepreneurial opportunities. It's entrepreneurial creativity, rather than money, that drives me. That's the fundamental trait that can put us back on track -- it's what we can offer to the world."

Like most of California's commercial developers, Ratkovich Co. has been bumped off the track amid the real estate recession.

But while the economic slowdown has turned his primary ventures into long-term propositions, the 52-year-old president of Ratkovich Co. isn't about to let idled projects idle his talented team. Although Ratkovich says he's no longer willing to invest his firm's own funds into smaller renovation projects, he's keeping his construction management group busy during the down time through a contract to renovate Glendale's historic Alex Theater.

Outside the county, he's also spreading his wings north to Fresno -- where he's spearheading a downtown revitalization plan -- and making similar overtures south in San Diego County. He's even looking east -- way beyond the boundaries of his usual "one-hour flight" parameter -- all the way to Moscow, where he would only reveal that a major multi-family venture in Russia's capital city is in the "early planning stages."

While Ratkovich's local renovations have consistently garnered kudos from the design community, the corresponding mixed bag of financial fortunes has helped the developer narrow his niche.

Ratkovich renovated and sold the 1929-vintage Oviatt property at a handsome profit. But probably more than any other venture, Ratkovich's aesthetically lauded but financially disastrous redevelopment of the Wilshire Center district's historic Chapman Market "mini-mall" convinced him that small, isolated City of L.A. renovation projects are rarely worth the effort and risk today.

"We don't want to throw away our expertise on smaller renovations," he explains. "They've got to be large-scale urban renewal opportunities" that can act as a catalytic anchor and promote long-term success by helping to revitalize the immediate community.

Another "common thread" running through Ratkovich Co.'s four current entrepreneurial ventures entails "working directly with cities to do what the public sector can't, then applying our expertise profitably," the developer adds.

While profitability remains a question mark, his three local ventures -- The Wiltern Center, downtown L.A.'s Terminal Annex and the massive Pike project -- otherwise adhere to Ratkovich's target niche. But now that future activity at each of those projects is uncertain amid the stagnant economic climate, Ratkovich's frustrations seem to leave him questioning his long-refined strategies.

"Maybe we're banging our heads against the wall with the urban renewal projects -- we probably are," he concedes during a conversation at Ratkovich Co.'s 11th-floor Pellissier Building headquarters.

Actually, Ratkovich erected many a brand-new wall over the last 15 years or so before choosing to focus on the head-banging renovation specialty. After the San Gabriel Valley native attended UCLA on a football scholarship and achieved a senior industrial-property marketing position with Coldwell Banker (now CB) Commercial Real Estate Services, Ratkovich and his development partners added about 4.5 million feet of commercial, industrial and retail space to the Southern California streetscape.

Since 1986, Ratkovich Co. and two nationally prominent co-venturists -- Copley Real Estate Advisors and Jim Rouse's Enterprise Development Co. -- have been planning one of the most ambitious development projects ever proposed for Southern California.

"The Pike," as the project is called, is designed for $1 billion worth of structures along Long Beach's waterfront over the next 10 to 15 years. Ratkovich says he hopes to break ground on a heavily residential first phase next spring -- if construction financing is available.

As a principal in the Ratkovich Villanueva Partnership, Ratkovich Co. has helped formulate a long-term master development plan of the "Alameda District" near Union Station.

Ratkovich Villanueva plans to redevelop the entire 17-acre property, including the U.S. Postal Service's 700,000-square-foot Terminal Annex complex. While the team has apparently lost the bidding to garner Metropolitan Transportation Authority's headquarters in the Alameda District, Ratkovich hints at a major early-summer announcement of an anchor tenancy deal at Terminal Annex.

Meanwhile, back in Wilshire Center, Ratkovich says one of the MTA's predecessor agencies, the L.A. County Transportation Commission, is a primary cause of his current struggles to keep the Wiltern building's occupancy rate respectable -- it's now at about 75 percent -- and to eventually expand that project.

While he still feels Wilshire Center district's future is "bright" with the coming of the Metro Rail subway, the "inexcusably" long construction period has wreaked havoc on the Wiltern building's tenants.

But Ratkovich says he expects Wilshire Center's fortunes to turn, generating strong demand for the high-density retail/residential complex he plans to eventually erect on the parking lot behind the Wiltern complex.

Meanwhile, Ratkovich Co. has become the primary player in the new long-term downtown Fresno revitalization plan. The city paid the firm to study alternatives and propose a comprehensive program, which includes Ratkovich Co.'s selection of its own development venture in a district generating negligible interest from local builders.

Ratkovich has elected to develop a new Fresno Farmers Market and Ethnic Food and Crafts Faire, in partnership with a local developer, on a site leased from the city.

Heavy praise from Fresno authorities has also helped Ratkovich Co. become a leading candidate to prepare a master plan for downtown Oceanside in San Diego County, Ratkovich adds. The city will soon request proposals from parties interested in participating, he notes.

Along with theatrical producer Ray Shepardson, Ratkovich Co. has also proposed a $6 million renovation/operation program for downtown San Diego's Balboa Theatre.

The city's downtown development authority has briefly delayed a decision on the proposal in order to review any competing plans other parties might offer, according to news reports.

But Ratkovich is confident he'll uncover other projects up his unique alley.

Snapshot

Wayne Ratkovich

Age: 52

Native of: San Gabriel Valley

Resident of: Hancock Park 

Education: B.A. in political science from UCLA, 1964 @ @