The new owners of an office building next to MainPlace Mall in Santa Ana have proposed building a 247-unit apartment complex on excess land at their property.
An affiliate of Irvine-based real estate investment and management firm PRES Cos. this month filed early-stage plans for a residential development next to its 2700 N. Main St. office building.
PRES bought the 12-story, 111,268-square-foot office—also known as the Wells Fargo Building—a little more than year ago for a reported $20.5 million.
The roughly 4.5-acre property also includes a good share of excess land within a few yards of the southern edge of the 1.1-million-square-foot MainPlace Mall.
Executives with PRES said at the time of the purchase that they were considering development options at the site but didn’t disclose specific plans.
A seven-story apartment building is the plan for now. City filings show that a two building, podium-style residential project would be built on about 3.4 acres, with each building consisting of five residential stories on top of four levels of parking.
Two levels of the garage would be underground, filings show.
Other amenities would include two “luxury spa level courtyards and (a) pool,” according to the developer.
“The exterior of the existing office building will be updated and enhanced” to complement the new apartments, according to the plans.
PRES officials said last week that the office’s lobby and common areas will also be upgraded.
The office, built in 1968, is about 50% leased, according to CoStar Group Inc. records.
The development would require a zone change and environmental analysis in order to be constructed, city filings note.
The developers said last week that they expect the project to be approved late this year.
Mall-Centric
The PRES project is one of several rental projects proposed in recent years for sites within walking distance of MainPlace Mall. It would be the closest of those to the mall, which is near the intersection of the Santa Ana (I-5) and Garden Grove (55) freeways.
MainPlace Mall brought in $280.1 million in taxable sales for the 12-month period ending in June, the eighth most of any Orange County shopping center, according to Business Journal data.
The mall, which is owned by Dallas-based Centennial Real Estate Co., recently learned it would be losing its largest tenant, Nordstrom, which leases an estimated 169,000 square feet, brokerage data shows.
The retailer said this month that it plans to shutter the MainPlace location in March.
Other nearby rental projects include Newport Beach-based Picerne Group’s Eleven10 West, a 260-unit project nearing completion a few blocks away in Orange, as well as a pair of projects in Santa Ana totaling 356 units.
Building rental projects next to some of the region’s largest malls and shopping centers have been a go-to strategy for area apartment developers during the past few years.
Apartment complexes have either recently opened or are under development at locations within walking distance to seven of Orange County’s 10 largest shopping centers by sales, according to Business Journal data.
The latest rental complex piggy backing on retail is Irvine Company’s Villas Fashion Island, a 524-unit project next to the upscale Newport Beach retail center. The first batch of apartments at that high-end rental project opened this month.
More in Store?
The 2700 N. Main St. office building was the first office purchase in Santa Ana for PRES, which also operates as Professional Real Estate Services Inc.
The privately held real estate investor has other holdings in the vicinity; in 2015 it was part of a venture that paid $41.5 million to buy the 10-story TriCentre building in Orange. The office is at the intersection of the I-5 and Orange (57) freeways.
PRES partners in that venture included Rodney Sacks and Hilton Schlosberg, the top two executives at Corona-based energy drink company Monster Beverage. The partners in PRES’ buy of the 2700 N. Main building haven’t been disclosed.
Real estate sources are pointing to PRES as the likely buyer of another Santa Ana office complex that’s on the market and expected to sell soon—the Sandpointe at MacArthur Place, a two-building project in the South Coast Metro area of the city.
Those eight-story buildings total close to 300,000 square feet. They were listed for sale last September and are owned by Boston-based TA Realty.
PRES executives declined comment on the rumored Sandpointe transaction.
