Thompson, Koll Plan New Home-Building Venture

Longtime local home builder Kathryn Thompson is forming a new real estate company with a part of developer Donald M. Koll’s empire, sources said. The new home-building company is expected to be located in Newport Beach and will be called Koll Thompson Communities.

The firm will be a joint venture with Thompson and Koll Real Estate Group, a publicly traded firm that owns 1,600 acres at Bolsa Chica, where hundreds of homes are planned.

Although the details are still being hammered out by Thompson and Koll, the new firm could eventually build homes at Bolsa Chica once a plan is approved. “All I can say is that it is a new company currently in formation,” said Ed Lones, a Koll spokesman in Newport Beach. “We can’t talk about it yet.”

In 1994, Koll Real Estate Group purchased Aliso Viejo-based Kathryn G. Thompson Co. for about $7.5 million. That company, which builds primarily in Aliso Viejo, became a wholly owned subsidiary of Koll and is expected to continue despite the formation of the new venture, though Thompson is not directing day-to-day operations.

Thompson, a home builder in California for more than two decades, has built thousands of homes here. She currently has projects in Aliso Viejo and Oceanside.