A $90 million condominium building with stores and offices was approved Tuesday night for Fullerton’s downtown.
Newport Beach’s John Laing Homes and Huntington Beach-based Pelican Properties plan to build a six-story building with 124 condos and 40,000 square feet of commercial space.
The project, which was scaled back from an original plan of nine stories, is one of the few condo buildings to go forward since the housing market downturn that started last year.
Amerige Court, is set to see construction in two years with residents coming in about five years, according to the developers.
“Hopefully the real estate market will be back up by that time,” Pelican Properties spokesman Richard Hamm said in an earlier Business Journal interview.
Pelican and John Laing have been planning Amerige Court for nearly three years and have had to revise their plans over concerns about building height, parking and impact on neighboring businesses.
Condos could sell from $450,000 to $1.5 million, according to Hamm.
The project is in the heart of Fullerton’s downturn, a hub of restaurants, bars and shops. Some city officials and project backers see Amerige Court as part of a fix to problems that have come from a concentration of restaurants and bars downtown.
“There is a problem with some of the bars in the area but it’s our opinion that by putting this project in, it will help clean up the problem,” Hamm said. “We see this being a positive thing for the city.”
Some residents and neighboring businesses opposed Amerige Court out of concerns about lost business during construction or because of worries the building would stick out in the city’s low-rise brick downtown.
