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Condo Projects Spread Elsewhere in Anaheim

Developers with ambitious plans for Anaheim’s Platinum Triangle, site of Orange County’s biggest urban redevelopment, now have more to worry about than just the slowing housing market.

A handful of developers are bringing competition in the form of projects just outside the Platinum Triangle, the once industrial area around Angel Stadium of Anaheim.

Close to 2,500 homes and apartments as well as hotels are planned a few blocks from the triangle, closer to the Disneyland Resort area. Some of the projects received initial city approval last month.

Not all of Anaheim’s leaders embrace the developments.

Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle has questioned some of these projects, saying that they could compete with the Platinum Triangle.

Pringle envisions the triangle, where plans call for 9,500 homes, as the center of the city’s urban revitalization.

“People have spent a fortune in a district where we’ve said we want to maximize residential use,” Pringle said at a council hearing late last month. “I hope every single one of the builders invested in the Platinum Triangle doesn’t think we are running away from them.”

The Aliso Viejo office of Miami-based Lennar Corp., the largest Platinum Triangle developer, recently started on $48 million in early work for its A-Town project.

Lennar plans 3,813 homes at A-Town, with up to 14 condominium towers.

Homebuilding at A-Town should start by year’s end with sales next summer.

Meanwhile, the city is working out the next step in the triangle’s makeover.

Last week, preliminary bid proposals were due for a 51-acre site next to Angel Stadium that the city wants to redevelop.

National and local developers have expressed interest in the site, said Sheri Vander Dussen, Anaheim’s planning director.

A timetable for selecting the winning bid still is being determined, she said.

The land up for bid is zoned for up to 700 homes, as well as offices, hotels, shops, restaurants and entertainment.

The site also could house a new stadium and would be the likely site of a new football arena if Anaheim is able to attract an NFL franchise.

As of last week, none of the prospective bidders were considering a stadium in their plans, Vander Dussen said.

Outside the triangle, a trio of high-rise developments are moving ahead.

At the 5-acre site of a former Toys R Us building on South Harbor Boulevard, Newport Beach developer Renaissance Pacific Properties LLC has plans for a 20-story tower that would include condos along with a 320-room hotel.

Renaissance plans to close on its buy of the land in early 2007. It could start construction in about a year, if it gets the necessary approvals, said Michael Capaldi, a principal with the developer.

This month, Renaissance hopes to finalize what hotel chain it will be working with.

The addition of condos to the hotel “was a way to economically support the hotel side of the project,” Capaldi said.

He likens the project to the Omni San Diego Hotel near Petco Park.

Capaldi said he doesn’t see his project butting heads with those next to Angel Stadium.

“The character of the Anaheim Resort is much different than that of the Platinum Triangle,” he said.

Also in the works: Irvine-based developer SunCal Cos. last month received initial city approval to build 1,300 homes and 200 apartments near Anaheim’s resort district, along the end of Gene Autry Way.

The City Council tentatively approved the SunCal project by a 4-1 vote. Pringle dissented.

“By approving this, we are creating a direct competitor to the units we have approved,” in the Platinum Triangle, Pringle said.

SunCal hasn’t disclosed detailed plans for the project. It may be moving away from an earlier plan to build a hotel alongside condos at the site, which now holds mobile homes.

Santa Ana-based developer Urban+West and Irvine’s St. Clair Meyers LLC last month detailed plans for Parc Anaheim, a 449-home project close to Disneyland.

The project is planned for a 12-acre site that now holds a motor home park. Plans call for two 10-story towers.

The plans come as questions about the county’s housing market are growing.

The local market has seen a sizable decline in the number of monthly sales this year, even as prices have stayed strong.

There were 2,779 homes sold in the county in July, a 36% drop from a year ago, according to La Jolla-based market tracker DataQuick Information Systems, a unit of Canada’s MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates.

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Mark Mueller
Mark Mueller
Mark is the Editor-in-Chief of the Orange County Business Journal, one of the premier regional business newspapers in the country. He’s the fifth person to hold the editor’s position in the paper’s long history. He oversees a staff of about 15 people. The OCBJ is considered a must-read for area business executives. The print edition of the paper is the primary source of local news for most of the Business Journal’s subscribers, which includes most of OC’s major corporate and community players. Mark’s been with the paper since 2005, and long served as the real estate reporter for the paper, breaking hundreds of commercial and residential real estate stories. He took on the editor’s position in 2018.
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