Irvine-based Centra Realty Corp. has paid $20 million for a 19-acre site in San Juan Capistrano with plans to develop a 241,000-square-foot business park.
Centra expects to start construction in the fourth quarter. The project, called Ventanas Business Center, should take a year to build, said Keith Ross, a former Koll Development Co. executive who runs Centra.
The company plans to build what it calls higher-end research and development buildings. The site is next to the San Diego (I-5) Freeway near Ortega Highway.
“There has been virtually no (industrial development) in San Juan Capistrano in the last decade,” Ross said. “The demand is significant.”
Centra’s latest project would be one of two big commercial developments planned for San Juan Capistrano in recent weeks.
The 125,000-square-foot headquarters of Meggitt PLC’s Endevco Corp., a maker of vibration-measurement instruments, recently sold for $33.5 million to a group eyeing the 15.3-acre site on Rancho Viejo Road for office development.
San Juan Capistrano isn’t the easiest part of the county to get permits and zoning for commercial development. And land for projects is scarce. That has kept some bigger developers away from the city.
It’s also driven down vacancy rates for more expensive research and development space in the area to less than 2%.
Ross and his Centra partner, George Peterson, have a personal stake in the project. They both live in San Juan Capistrano, an edge they say helped gain approvals.
“It’s one of the toughest places to develop, but there’s a passion we both have for the area,” Ross said.
This will be the third and largest project Centra has taken on in San Juan Capistrano.
The company’s Ortega Ranch Business Center, a 125,000-square-foot business park with offices, industrial space and retail, just finished off Ortega Highway. The 12-building complex is about 70% leased, according to Ross.
A few years ago, the company built Valle Ranch, a 44,000-square-foot office project.
Outside San Juan Capistrano, Centra had been involved for a few years in the proposed redevelopment of Buena Park’s former Nabisco factory along the Santa Ana (I-5) Freeway.
Last fall, it sold its stake in the iconic property to partner Seligman and Associates Inc. of San Francisco for an undisclosed price. Demolition work has begun. A plan to redevelop that 24-acre site still is in the works.
Centra’s development at Ventanas calls for 12 industrial buildings, each ranging from 2,600 to 26,250 square feet. It is the last developable parcel in San Juan Capistrano next to the freeway, according to brokers with the Newport Beach-based office of Grubb & Ellis Co.
Scott Johnstone and Greg Puccinelli of Grubb & Ellis represented Centra and the seller, Buie Stoddard Properties of Laguna Niguel. Puccinelli and Johnstone also are set to market the buildings at Ventanas.
At the Endevco site, Newport Beach-based Pacific Capital Holdings has eyes on a big redevelopment. The company plans to take the next year to get redevelopment approvals, said brokers with the Newport Beach office of Lee & Associates Commercial Real Estate Services Inc.
If development occurs, Endevco likely would move to a new building on the site, possibly in the 80,000-square-foot range, Lee & Associates’ Mike Meisenbach said.
