A retail redevelopment project under way in San Diego is converting a former police headquarters complex into restaurants, shops and entertainment venues.

Terramar Retail Centers plans to spend $40 million to replace the Old Police Headquarters complex with 30 stores and eateries. The 100,000-square-foot, three-building complex sits on waterfront land owned by the publicly controlled Unified Port of San Diego and served as San Diego's police headquarters from the 1930s to 1987. It has sat empty most of the time since then. Now, the port is leasing the property to Terramar.

Some of the historic parts of the complex will be preserved. Its courthouse, chief's office and garage will likely be converted into restaurants, while some of the holding cells will become stores and casual eateries.

"It's an architectural art to fit these modern, contemporary uses into something that was never intended to be retail," Terramar Chief Executive Steve Bowers said.

—Kris Hudson

Building Equity

Private-equity and hedge funds started buying up cheap land after the housing bust in the hopes of flipping it to home builders once the market recovered. Now, big funds are betting on the builders themselves.

A team of investors led by Los Angeles-based Oaktree Capital Management and Stonehill Capital Management has infused builder Woodside Homes with $203 million of new capital in a bid to help the company expand as the market bounces back.

Woodside was one of the country's largest privately owned builders until the bust sent it into bankruptcy-court protection with a heavy debt load. The company emerged from bankruptcy in 2010 with a staff 75% smaller. It plans to build 1,400 homes this year, down from more than 3,000 in the boom.

"We morphed from a company owned by banks and insurance companies to a builder owned by private-equity funds, opportunity funds and insurance companies," said Joel Shine, the builder's chairman and chief executive.

—Robbie Whelan

How to Share $12 Million

Now that financial planner David Lerner Associates Inc. has agreed to pay about $12 million in restitution to customers who purchased shares in a nontraded real-estate investment trust named Apple Ten, the question becomes: How do the customers get their money?

The answer is that Wall Street's self-regulator, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, will hire an independent consultant who will put together a payment plan, according to Brad Bennett, the chief of Finra's enforcement division. Finra reached the settlement with David Lerner after charging the Syosset, N.Y., firm with targeting unsophisticated and elderly investors and failing to determine whether their investments in Apple Ten were suitable.

"I would expect the consultant will take into account concentration of potential victims' assets in Apple Ten and their age and other suitability factors," Mr. Bennett said in an interview.

At this point, none of the investors has experienced a loss from their investments in Apple Ten because the shares are illiquid. "What we're compensating people for right now are damages for being in an investment they never should have been in," Mr. Bennett said.

Finra also fined the firm more than $2.3 million and its founder, David Lerner, $250,000. Mr. Lerner and his firm didn't deny or admit the charges. A statement released by the firm said it agreed to the settlement to move "past these distractions."

—Peter Grant