Developer Mike Harrah has won changes in city rules that could allow his long-stalled One Broadway Plaza office tower to start construction in Santa Ana.
The City Council on Monday waived a rule requiring Harrah to lease half of the proposed 530,000-square-foot tower before starting construction.
Those “rules were set six or seven years ago,” Harrah told the Business Journal in June. “It’s a different world now” in the office market.
Harrah won voter approval for the project in 2005 with a measure that included the 50% preleasing rule from the city.
One Broadway Plaza would be the county’s tallest building.
Keeping the preleasing rule would force Harrah to lease half of the building at current depressed rates, he said.
Office rents are 25% or more below where they were a few years ago.
Harrah contends he would be better off building the massive tower on speculation.
“This really is the poster child of ‘build it, and they will come,’” he said.
The city also gave Harrah more time to pay for traffic studies, according to a report in the Orange County Register.
But councilmembers declined to allow him to seek subsidies for the project through Santa Ana’s redevelopment agency.
Harrah had sought about $1.5 million in yearly tax incentives, which would run for about 10 years and help offset some costs associated with building and leasing the building in a down market.
Preparatory work is done at the site of One Broadway, which otherwise has been idle for years.
Telecommunications companies, television stations, law firms and government agencies all have been floated by Harrah as possible tenants at the building, which has yet to announce any leases.
