Paul Lopez

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT - ACQUISITIONS AND PERMITTING CONSULTANT

Paul Lopez is a uniquely cross-trained development professional with extensive experience in the entitlement and construction of large mixed-use real estate projects and utility-scale renewable energy facilities.

RESIDENTIAL – MIXED USE PROJECTS:

Serving as an independent real estate consultant Paul represented Standard Pacific Homes for nearly a decade.  His efforts delivered scores of mixed-use projects totaling more than 3,000 units.  He also completed land acquisitions assignments for UDC Homes Active Adult Division where he was instrumental in building a land portfolio of Age Restricted Master Planned Communities comprising more than 5,000 units located throughout California.     

As an emerging industry leader in Acquisition and Forward Planning, Paul has been recruited to join the teams of several top ten public homebuilders, including KB Homes, Lennar Homes, and Richmond American.  His successful negotiations on behalf of these firms resulted in the acquisition, entitlement and development of more than 7,000 lots.

Paul’s corporate reporting responsibilities included preparation of Final Corporate Land Committee Purchase Packages and preparing monthly project by project Power Point Presentations updating pre-development schedules and pre-construction budgets for the review of investors, lenders, and other key stakeholders.

Altogether, he was responsible for the negotiations and closings of more than 300 land transactions, including several highly successful Mergers and Acquisitions. He also managed teams in the timely execution of pre-development and pre-construction design and entitlement processing, resulting in a diverse array of product lines including large-lot single family detached homes, single family attached units, and multi-family attached units.  (townhouses, duplexes and apartments)

In the course of his career, Paul delivered 15,000 units for a combined paper lot value of more than $3 BB.  He won additional plan approvals for infrastructure improvements exceeding $3.75 BB. In total, his projects generated over $9.75 Billion in housing revenues.

UTILITY SCALE REWEWABLE ENERGY PROJECTS:

Paul gained invaluable renewable energy experience working for EDF-EN (Electricite de France SA), a leading French renewable energy firm with a wind and solar division in California. Paul was part of an internal title curative team identifying and creatively resolving more than 500 title issues, thereby eliminating dozens of potential turbine site and access road conflicts and avoiding environmental resource constraints, both critical design tasks for the successful construction and operation of the development.

He was promoted to serve as an Assistant Project Manager for a multi-phase development comprising 600 MW of wind energy and 110 MW of solar energy.   He collaborated with the inhouse engineering team on turbine site analysis and road access designs.  As part of the transmission component of the project, Paul prepared the overhead Gen-Tie Transmission route encompassing 26 miles of dedicated construction and maintenance easements. The entire project was located on approximately 20,000 acres of leased lands in Kern County California with an estimated build out value of the site exceeding $900 MM.

Prior to joining New Albion Group, Paul was recruited by EarthGrid – Pristine Sun, a start-up company focused on Utility Scale Renewable Energy Projects and underground utility transmission routes. While there, he researched Policies and Procedures including key reference sections focused on land acquisitions, fatal flaw analysis, due diligence reports, and scope of work proposals.  These guidelines offered a framework for hiring and managing the external design teams.

His project management team prepared development applications to deliver 4.5 GW of utility scale renewable solar and battery storage projects, including fiber optic telecommunications capacity with potential to serve thousands of customers located along the proposed underground transmission routes for power generated on 30,000 acres of land in California, Nevada, and Texas.  The transmission routes for each major project exceeded 300 miles of underground tunnels with an average estimated improvement value of $ 1 BB for each route.

Throughout his career, he received continuous training from leading residential and renewable energy experts in law, title, environmental, and technical regulatory frameworks.  

Paul is widely considered to be one of the most knowledgeable and experienced land development professionals in California.

EDUCATION:

Bachelor’s Degree in US History - University of California, Davis.

·      Baccalaureate - College of Letters and Science.

·      Journalism Internship - "California Journal".

·      Certificate of Merit - Avian Science Department.

LICENSES AND COURSES:

·      Real Estate Sales License California Department of Real Estate.

·      Continuing Education: NEPA-CEQA Updates, HOA- and DRE Association Training, and Property Appraising Skills.

·      Technical Proficiency: Microsoft Suite, JD Edwards Accounting Program, Zoom / Go-To-Meeting, and A-I Research.