Big Mike’s plans for Santa Ana keep getting bigger.
Developer Michael Harrah has unveiled his latest plans for revitalizing Santa Ana’s downtown: a 470-foot condominium tower next door to his proposed One Broadway Plaza, the 37-story office tower he expects to break ground on soon.
The condo tower will have close to 300 homes, tentatively slated to sell from $425,000 to $1.8 million. The project’s plans include eight stories of underground parking and a fifth-floor recreation deck with a pool.
The glass-lined tower would mirror One Broadway Plaza in size and height, save for a floor of restaurants envisioned at the top of the nearly 500-foot office tower.
It would be the tallest condo tower in the county, about five stories higher than some of the condos proposed for Anaheim’s Platinum Triangle.
The condo development “will be a little more state of the art” than the high-rise homes being built elsewhere in the county, said Harrah, whose Santa Ana-based Caribou Industries Inc. is building a 35-story condo project in Honolulu.
The two skyscrapers would cast an imposing presence in the center of the county and would sit next to an arts center and smaller amphitheater Harrah plans to build in the next few years for Orange County High School of the Arts.
“I wanted to do something that no one else here has done,” Harrah said.
The burly developer hopes to get the condo tower done about two years after One Broadway is finished.
Harrah is talking about a condo tower even though he’s yet to start building One Broadway. Under a pact with the city, he needs to have the building half leased,nearly 300,000 square feet,before starting construction.
No tenants have been announced yet.
Harrah said he expects to get the office tower done by late-2008 or early 2009. He said he’s in talks to lease space to a government agency, a telecommunications company, a drug maker and a local real estate business.
One Broadway could break ground in June, Harrah said, a few months later than he expected late last year and two years after city voters OK’d the project in a contentious referendum.
Harrah isn’t showing concern: “I’ve already been working on this for 15 years.”
Early stage work is under way at the office site. Most of the land has been cleared. A historic house still there could be moved as soon as this week.
Harrah has made progress on financing for the $300 million office tower. Last week, he closed on the sale of two offices in Santa Ana, including the 1200 N. Main St. building that serves as Caribou’s headquarters.
“After all these years, I’m finally going to be a tenant,” said Harrah, who still owns close to 80 properties in Santa Ana, making him the city’s dominant landlord.
Citivest Inc. of Irvine bought 1200 N. Main St. and 1600 N. Broadway for about $30 million. Caribou takes up much of the top floor of the nine-story North Main office. The county of Orange leases the majority of the remaining space at the 143,456-square-foot building.
The 10-story North Broadway building had been occupied by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development the past eight years but recently was vacated.
Citivest plans to turn the 110,000-square-foot building into office condos for sale and hopes to get city approvals later this year, said Jim Nichols, a partner with the developer. In the meantime, Citivest will lease the space, he said.
The company plans to buy another Santa Ana office building, at about 60,000 square feet, from Harrah in the next few months, Nichols said. The recent transactions are the company’s first foray into the Santa Ana.
Also on the sales block for Caribou: four properties running along North Main and Sycamore streets.
Harrah is selling the buildings and land, which total about three city blocks and 6 acres, to Orange County High School of the Arts.
The plan is to build a 500-seat performing arts center and 120-seat outdoor amphitheater next to the Santa Ana school.
Caribou will be handling the construction for the school. The projects should cost about $15 million, Harrah said.
Construction on the two arts projects could begin in two or three years. Harrah, a long-time supporter of the school, said he cut the school a deal for the land.
