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Angels Push Back on Mixed-Use Plan Near Stadium

It looks like the biggest battle the sputtering Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim will have on their hands over the next few months will involve potential development of a 14.8-acre site next to their stadium.

LT Global Investment, a Hong Kong-based developer with U.S. operations based in Los Angeles, is looking to turn a vacant parcel it owns on Orangewood Avenue next to the stadium into one of Orange County’s most ambitious mixed-use developments.

The project would feature a 30-story condo tower, a hotel, a 255-unit apartment complex, an office and about 433,000 square feet of retail space.

LT Global bought the land in 2014 and has spent much of the past year working to get the necessary entitlements for the project, which would be the first big mixed-use development in the Platinum Triangle, the 820-acre swath of land around Angel Stadium.

The bulk of development in the Platinum Triangle to date has been midrise apartments, with several thousand built over the past decade and a few thousand more on the way.

LT Global last month got approval from Anaheim’s planning commission for the project over the objections of the Angels.

The Angels, in addition to environmental and zoning concerns, said in city filings that LT Global’s project would eliminate the team’s ability to build its own mixed-use project on excess land surrounding the stadium and that the developer’s project would cannibalize food and beverage sales at the stadium itself.

Approving the project also would harm recently renewed negotiations between the city and the baseball team over a new stadium lease, potentially leading the team to relocate, the Angels said.

Randy Jefferson, executive director of project development for LT Global, said after the planning commission vote that it expects Anaheim’s city council to take up its project as soon as late this month. In late August, however, the Angels filed an appeal with the city requesting that the developer prepare a new environmental impact report to address a variety of concerns.

A new EIR would likely take months to complete. The city is expected to take up the Angels’ appeal request near the end of the month; officials representing the team have held open the possibility of suing the city if their request is denied.

LT Global could begin construction on its project by the fourth quarter of next year, assuming all goes well, Jefferson told the Business Journal prior to the Angels’ appeal.

Plans call for the project to be built in two phases, with the first batch of construction including a portion of the retail and midrise apartments, and the second phase including the 30-story condo tower, which would be Orange County’s tallest residential building.

The entire project is envisioned to be built by 2022 at a cost topping $500 million.

Jefferson said that in addition to the entitlement work, developers are working on landing tenants for the retail portion and have talked to a number of national and local companies, including grocery-type retailers that would serve as an anchor for the first portion of retail construction.

The developer hasn’t disclosed any tenants.

Value-Add Buy

Focus Real Estate LP, a Newport Beach-based investor whose executive team has ties to the Koll Development Co., has bought an industrial park in the San Bernardino County city of Rancho Cucamonga.

The company recently completed the buy of Arrow Business Park, a multitenant industrial and flex business park about 4 miles north of Ontario Airport.

The purchase was capitalized with equity from HG Capital and a loan from Silvergate Bank of La Jolla that totaled $17.1 million, according to the buyers.

The business park runs about 134,000 square feet and was 76% occupied in a local market that has a 1.37% industrial vacancy rate. Focus said it plans to upgrade the property and lease out the vacant space at the park.

It’s the investor’s sixth acquisition in Southern California in the past two years. The firm was formed in 2000 and is headed by longtime real estate executive Richard Ortwein, former president of Koll Development, and business partners Michael Ortwein and Jack Kappe.

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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.
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