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Balboa Fun Zone isn’t the typical project you’d expect to see listed on Chartwell Real Estate Development’s portfolio.
In 2021, Chartwell saw an opportunity to buy Balboa Fun Zone, a small waterfront amusement park that’s seen better days on the Balboa Peninsula.
“We’re working on revitalization and redevelopment,” Chartwell Co-founder and Operating Partner Henry Pyle told the Business Journal.
Balboa Fun Zone’s redevelopment is just a small piece of a growing real estate development firm that Pyle began in 2017.
He has already acquired, developed or is in the process of developing a total of about 2 million square feet of projects, which are a mix of office, industrial and retail real estate, predominantly in Southern California and Las Vegas.
His advisory board includes long-time OC-based real estate developers like Curt Olson, owner and CEO of Nexus Development Corp., Brandon Birtcher, CEO of Birtcher Development, and Pat Donahue, former chairman and CEO of Donahue Schriber. The board also includes a well-known OC business entrepreneur—his father, David Pyle founder and CEO of American Career College as well as the chairman of West Coast University.
“We’ve not had any investors. It’s just our family office at this point, but we do have a strategy to start raising outside money—we’ve been developing that plan,” Pyle said. “Our whole M.O. is acquiring or developing high quality, well located industrial and retail assets that we hold and manage for the long-term, to create long-term cash flow and value. That’s allowed us to be flexible and take a long-term view.”
Even though Chartwell hasn’t yet raised outside capital, the fact that it already has a big portfolio and an advisory board with a deep pedigree makes Pyle a logical choice to be on the Business Journal’s list of OC50 Rising Entrepreneurs (see OC50, page 32).
The OC Connection
A majority of Chartwell’s real estate portfolio are industrial properties in Orange County and the Inland Empire. He said biotech companies and startups are beginning to thrive.
“I think Orange County has been evolving as a business epicenter for commercial real estate,” Pyle said.
He also wants to retain the fun parts of Orange County.
In 2021, Chartwell purchased the Balboa Fun Zone, a block-long site that’s among Southern California’s oldest and best-known coastal amusement areas, from Discovery Cube, the nonprofit children’s science center.
The bayside property—Orange County’s pint-sized version of Coney Island—includes the Edgewater Place boardwalk, which holds a Ferris wheel and other amusement attractions, plus a nearly 17,000-square-foot retail and entertainment building, as well as a 21,400-square-foot marina. The site counts some 212 feet of water frontage.
Pyle said the iconic 80-year-old amusement park played a fun part in both his and his father’s youth.
He has no plans to “knock it down for condos.”
“We are excited and honored to assume stewardship of the iconic Balboa Fun Zone and look forward to working with the city and community of Newport Beach to restore this historic 80-year-old landmark,” Pyle said at the time of the acquisition.
Viva Las Vegas
The real estate company’s portfolio only has two industrial properties in Southern Nevada, but more acquisitions are planned in the future, including a 333,578-square-foot ground-up development at 4425 E. Cartier Ave., Las Vegas. Chartwell Real Estate Development paid $29.5 million for two-building, 106,500-square-foot industrial park at Russell Commerce Center in Las Vegas.
Pyle said his company is attracted to Las Vegas and Southern Nevada due to “massive growth” in the region.
“What they’ve done in terms of diversifying their economy over the last decade-plus, they’ve really upscaled,” Pyle said.
The Father Mentor
Pyle credits his father, David Pyle, for helping him launch Chartwell.
“We’ve both been able to learn the business together,” Henry Pyle said. “He’s been an incredible mentor for my entire life.”
Henry Pyle estimated he spends about 30% of his time on the family business, which is the ownership of American Career College and West Coast University.
“I spend quite a lot of time on the schools,” Pyle said, adding he was recently elected as the vice chair for the two institutions. “There’s no more noble mission than helping young people reach their dreams of graduating from school.”