One Broadway Plaza, the planned Santa Ana office tower that’s seen little outward progress since being approved by voters in early 2005, will start construction early next year, according to developer Michael Harrah.
Piles for the nearly 500-foot structure are set to be driven in March, said Harrah, president of Santa Ana-based Caribou Industries Inc.
The building’s steel frame should go up shortly after that, he said.
So does that mean Harrah has tenants lined up for the building? After all, Santa Ana officials require Harrah to lease half of the 600,000-square-foot building before starting construction.
No leases have been announced. And if Harrah has tenants lined up, he’s not saying as much.
City officials said they haven’t gotten word on tenants and haven’t issued final permits to start construction.
Harrah is late to the county’s office tower building boom. The first of six towers going up in Irvine could be done about the time he plans to start on One Broadway Plaza.
The developer said he isn’t worried about the competition, saying his 37-story tower,16 stories and 200 feet taller than the county’s next tallest office building,will have drawing power.
“When you see the steel reach the height of the other buildings in the area, and then keep going up, and keep going up, it’s going to open a lot of eyes,” Harrah said last week from his top-floor office on North Main Street, which overlooks the One Broadway site.
The site, at the corner of 10th Street and Broadway, is largely cleared. One remaining building is in the process of being removed.
Caribou and the Irvine office of Greeley, Colo.-based Hensel Phelps Construction Co. are handling construction. Caribou, Harrah’s development, construction and property management company, plans to handle tenant improvement work.
The Costa Mesa office of San Diego-based Carrier Johnson is the lead architect for the tower.
Early Going
Harrah, who owns about 4 million square feet of real estate downtown and near the Civic Center, started assembling land for One Broadway in the early 1990s.
Two initial designs for the project were rejected by the city, before it signed off on the final version in 2004. Harrah agreed to pay more than $10 million on traffic upgrades before getting the city’s sign-off, which also includes the leasing requirement.
The project has been controversial. Activists managed to put it to an April 2005 citywide vote, which Harrah handedly won.
An election night napkin with the final vote tally on it is framed and hangs in the lobby of Harrah’s office.
Since the election, Harrah said he has been lining up financing and selling off a handful of buildings to cover pre-construction costs. He still owns close to 80 properties in Santa Ana, making him the city’s dominant landlord.
One Broadway “has already cost me $35 million to $40 million,” Harrah said.
A year and a half after the vote, the projected price to build the tower has soared.
The tower was expected to cost close to $90 million to build. Now, with higher construction costs, it’s closer to $300 million, Harrah said.
He said he’s lined up a loan with the real estate investment arm of General Electric Co. to cover a majority of the project.
Rents for the tower are expected to run $2.85 to $3.90 per square foot, about on par with what other developers are expected to charge at office towers under construction in Irvine.
Federal government agencies in Los Angeles are used to paying rents in the $3 per square foot range, so the Santa Ana project shouldn’t be out of their price range, according to Harrah.
The developer already is thinking beyond One Broadway. The office tower could have a neighbor if Harrah’s next big plan for Santa Ana comes to fruition.
Designs are in the works for another tower running about the same height as One Broadway, about a block from the office project. The second tower could include 400 condominiums running from $750,000 to more than $4 million each, he said.
Plans for a condo tower haven’t been filed with the city. The project could be three or four years away, Harrah said.
It wouldn’t be Harrah’s first high-rise homes. A 35-story luxury tower planned for downtown Honolulu is nearly sold out and ready to break ground. Harrah said he spends about 10 days a month in Hawaii overseeing the project.
The envisioned Santa Ana condo tower could be connected to One Broadway by an underground tunnel, Harrah said. Both would be within walking distance of Santa Ana’s revitalized downtown, which includes the city’s Performing Arts and Events Center and the OC Pavilion, both built by Harrah.
A former YMCA building near One Broadway could make way for a boutique hotel, according to Harrah. He said he’s made a proposal to the city for the hotel, which likely would cost about $12 million to build. n
