A hotel and another round of apartment construction are being planned for LBA Realty’s sprawling Park Place mixed-use campus, which also holds the potential for a new office tower.
The Irvine-based developer, which owns the bulk of the 105-acre Irvine campus, is said to have deals in place to sell land that would hold both a second apartment complex and a high-end hotel with as many as 180 rooms.
Sares-Regis Group in Irvine is under contract to buy the apartment development site from LBA. The project is expected to hold about 520 units.
Construction on the project could begin this fall, according to Geoffrey Stack, managing director of Irvine-based Sares-Regis. Terms of the impending land sale have not been disclosed.
Woodbine Development Corp., a Dallas-based developer that specializes in hospitality properties, is said to be under contract to buy a site slated to hold a Marriott-branded hotel.
A time frame for that project moving ahead has not been disclosed.
It would be Woodbine’s first in California.
Development plans for a 180-room hotel project were filed with Irvine’s planning commission late last year.
Sources point to AC Hotels by Marriott, a European-themed brand looking to make inroads in select U.S. markets, as a potential fit for the hotel.
The project is expected to be the most upscale of the five hotel developments currently on the books in Irvine, which in total could bring more than 800 rooms to the city’s base of hotels (see story in Special Report, which starts on page 17).
Offices Considered
In addition, brokers representing LBA have begun early-stage marketing plans for an office that, if built, could rival Park Place’s Michelson office tower in terms of size.
The proposed office would be 12 stories and nearly 550,000 square feet, according to CoStar Group Inc. data.
The 19-story Michelson tower is 536,000 square feet.
That tower, built by Maguire Properties Inc. in 2007, has traded hands twice since its opening.
Toronto-based Manulife Financial Corp. bought the property from New York-based Emmes Group of Cos. in 2012 for $277 million, the most expensive sale of a single-building office property on record in Orange County.
No prospective tenants have been announced for LBA’s proposed build-to-suit office. It would be the largest office built in Orange County in more than a decade if it goes forward under the currently proposed plans.
Its construction is believed to be dependent on first landing a tenant to take up a good portion of the building’s space.
Brokers with the local offices of Orion Property Partners and Cushman & Wakefield Inc. have the listing for the proposed office.
Campus Revamp
The plans in the works are the latest chapter in the transformation of Park Place, which is next to the San Diego (405) Freeway along Jamboree Road, about a mile from John Wayne Airport.
The campus saw two high-rise condominiums—Orange County’s first condo tower project—and the Michelson office tower built at the campus prior to the onset of the last recession.
LBA took over ownership of a bulk of the then-distressed campus—virtually everything except the condo towers and the Michelson office—from Maguire Properties in a series of transactions in 2009 and 2010.
The new owners have since undertaken a major renovation and expansion of the 2.5-million-square-foot campus, reportedly spending in excess of $40 million to upgrade the property’s low-rise office space and shopping center, among other changes.
Last year, a flagship LA Fitness gym opened at the campus. The fitness operator has its headquarters at the campus’ Michelson tower.
The apartment site Sares-Regis has under contract would be the second for-rent residential project at Park Place.
Newport Beach-based Irvine Company is constructing a 990-unit complex at the southern end of the campus.
Irvine Co. paid a reported $101.4 million for the 14-acre development site in 2011. It expects to open its complex late this year.
Sares-Regis’ site sits a few blocks closer to Jamboree Road than the Irvine Co. apartment development, and it is located just south of the retail portion of Park Place.
The architecture for the Sares-Regis project “will be complementary to the shopping center,” said Mary Ann King, president of brokerage Moran & Co., whose Irvine office had the listing for the project. “It will be a high-end, urban product.”
LBA initially marketed another parcel of land for sale to prospective apartment developers, along with the land that is being sold to Sares-Regis. That land, located closer to the 405 Freeway, could have held an additional 250 or so apartments, according to marketing materials.
LBA opted to take that land off the market for sale, and it is considering other uses. The proposed 12-story office is one of those options.
“They’re rethinking things” with the land, King said, “and trying to see what makes the most sense.”
