Call it a holy land sale.
Crystal Cathedral Ministries is selling the southern tip of Rancho Capistrano, its grassy campus retreat, according to the church.
The San Juan Capistrano land could be heavenly for homebuilders. And it could fetch as much as $150 million. It is 58 acres of neglected orange and persimmon groves next to the San Joaquin Hills (73) toll road near the intersection of the San Diego (I-5) Freeway.
The Garden Grove-based church is selling the land to “meet some of the ministry’s financial goals,” said Cheryl Ellison, chief operating director at Rancho Capistrano. She declined to elaborate.
The church, headed by TV minister Robert Schuller, owns 170 acres in San Juan Capistrano. It’s set to keep 112 acres that were donated to it by John Crean and his family in 1982, Ellison said.
Crean founded Riverside’s Fleetwood Enterprises, a maker of recreational vehicles and pre-fab homes.
Crystal Cathedral is selling land it bought in the late 1980s next to Crean’s donated land but never was developed, Ellison said. The land for sale primarily is used for walking trails, she said.
The larger northern portion, by contrast, now totals about 18 buildings, including a year-round Christian preschool, an elementary and middle school, a conference and retreat center and a church.
For more on this story, see the May 2 edition of the Orange County Business Journal.
