57.5 F
Laguna Hills
Monday, Mar 18, 2024
-Advertisement-

Chinese Developer Buys A-Town Parcel in Platinum Triangle

A real estate company in China has bought one of the most prominent parcels of developable land in Anaheim’s Platinum Triangle, where it plans its flagship residential and commercial development project for the U.S.

An affiliate of Hong Kong-based LT Commercial Real Estate Ltd. last month completed the purchase of a roughly 12.5-acre former industrial site next to Angel Stadium. LT Commercial is a development and construction company that to date has focused its efforts in China.

The land, at the northeast corner of State College Boulevard and East Orangewood Avenue, traded hands for just under $28.4 million, or nearly $2.3 million per acre, according to regulatory filings in Hong Kong, where the buyer’s stock is traded.

The site was sold by an affiliate of Miami-based LNR Property LLC.

LNR and one-time sister company Lennar Corp.—also based in Miami with significant operations in Orange County—reportedly paid $55 million for the site in 2006.

The property was initially envisioned as one of the more notable developments in the Platinum Triangle, the roughly 380-acre former industrial area surrounding the baseball stadium.

The 12.5-acre site was originally expected to hold 878 units for sale—a combination of high-rise condo towers and midrise townhouses—under the A-Town Stadium name.

The last housing downturn put plans on hold.

LNR took over full ownership of the site from Lennar about two years ago and began re-entitling it for a less-dense development featuring brownstone-type apartment buildings.

Current Plans

Current plans call for 525 midrise apartment units at the now-vacant site, but the new owner is going back to the city in hopes of turning the land into a mixed-use development that’s closer to the original A-Town Stadium vision, according to Rich Knowland, managing director for Newport Beach-based developer Brooks Street.

Brooks Street has a relationship with several China-based real estate groups looking to invest in California, according to Knowland, who previously ran Lennar’s OC operations and is now working with LT Global on the Anaheim project.

LT Commercial said it plans “to build a large-scale complex incorporating commercial and residential properties” on the site, and that the project would be its first in the U.S.

“We will expedite our project on the land … to take full advantage of the recovery” in the U.S. real estate market, Long Fei Yang, LT Commercial’s chairman and chief executive, said in a statement.

The company has an office in Los Angeles and is looking at other sites in California for investments.

Other locations in the Platinum Triangle could be in the works for the investor, according to Knowland.

The deal appears to be the most prominent ground-up development in Orange County taken up by a China-based real estate company. Real estate investors from China have primarily spent their money here buying existing office buildings, with notable deals taking place in the past few years in Irvine, Newport Beach, and the South Coast Metro area.

Some large property developers from mainland China are increasingly eyeing the U.S. for ground-up deals, according to Yang, who cited real estate companies such as Shenzhen-based China Vanke, the country’s largest residential developer, as well as Dalian Wanda and Greenland Holding Grove among those recently searching out deals.

$10 Billion

Chinese investors have spent nearly $10 billion on real estate deals in the U.S. between 2008 and mid-2014, according to an October report by brokerage Cushman & Wakefield Inc. More than $7 billion of those took place since the start of 2013, thanks in part to a cooling real estate market in China that has forced companies there to look elsewhere for investments.

The U.S. was the top foreign destination for Chinese real estate investments over the past year, according to the brokerage’s data.

The five largest real estate deals in Orange County since 2008 involving Chinese investors totaled $111 million, the brokerage’s report said, the third most of any California market by that measure, trailing only Los Angeles ($793 million) and San Francisco ($558 million).

Want more from the best local business newspaper in the country?

Sign-up for our FREE Daily eNews update to get the latest Orange County news delivered right to your inbox!

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.
-Advertisement-

Featured Articles

-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-

Related Articles

-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-