Alliance Residential, a Phoenix-based apartment developer with a sizeable Orange County portfolio, has another local project in the works—this time targeting a different market segment.
The company, which builds most of its developments under the Broadstone name, recently closed on a 1.1-acre site just off the San Diego (5) Freeway in Laguna Niguel and plans to build a new 111-unit, high-end assisted living facility under the Holden name.
The land, at 27762 Forbes Road, sold for $12 million; at nearly $11.1 million per acre it’s one of the higher prices seen in the area for developable land.
The sellers were a venture between Newport Beach-based Blackwood Real Estate and Walbern Investments USA LLC. The group had previously received entitlements to build 100 condominiums, but re-entitled the land for Alliance prior to the transaction.
Irvine-based brokerage firm WD Land had the listing for the proposed development, marketed under the Icon Laguna name.
It’s “a great fit for the location and demographic,” said Sal Provenza, a partner at WD Land. “We are seeing a lot of activity throughout Orange County for this product type.”
Mixed-Use
An older, 22,350-square-foot office property at the site will be razed to make way for the building, which will be three stories with subterranean parking and ground-floor retail along Forbes Road.
The Laguna Niguel project is estimated to cost around $45 million; the developer is currently working on site design and could break ground within the year.
This is the third deal between Alliance and the Blackwood/Walbern venture; in 2014 it paid $24.1 million for a four-building business park next to the Icon Laguna site on Forbes Road near Crown Valley Parkway.
Similar to the new deal, Blackwood received entitlements for a multifamily project for the site, which is now home to a 348-unit project that Alliance opened in 2017, called Broadstone Cavora. The sellers also sold Alliance the entitled land for the recently opened 300-unit Broadstone Vilara, next to Broadstone Cavora along Getty Drive.
“The sellers have been at the forefront of the transformation of this corridor,” Provenza said.
Nearly 3,000 new residential units have been approved for development by the city, near the intersection of Forbes Road and Crown Valley Parkway, an area close to Laguna Niguel’s Metrolink station.
“Our focus in the area has been on luxury development that also includes community benefits such as public trail improvements, infrastructure upgrades, and affordable housing units,” Blackwood Partner Gilad Ganish said. “The new Holden project, for example, will include close to $2 million in off-site improvements including a new pedestrian bridge over the Oso Creek Channel.”
Senior Segment
Senior housing is a relatively new market segment for Alliance, which said a few years ago it planned to invest $1 billion in the sector.
The company just took the wraps off its first senior housing property in the company’s portfolio: the 166-unit Marvelle at Southcenter in Tukwila, Wash.
The three Laguna Niguel projects are among a large portfolio in Orange County for Alliance Residential, which also owns apartment projects in Anaheim, Fullerton, Santa Ana, Irvine and Newport Beach. Its Broadstone Arden project at the intersection of Barranca Parkway and Red Hill Avenue in Santa Ana is among OC’s largest new apartment developments of the past year.
