The city of Anaheim is moving forward on plans to sell a long-vacant, 25-acre site on its western side to a retail developer.
An affiliate of Zelman Development Co.—a Los Angeles-based developer of shopping centers and industrial properties—is looking to turn city-owned land at the intersection of Lincoln Avenue and Beach Boulevard into a nearly 300,000-square-foot project called Westgate Center.
It is expected to be anchored by a pair of big box retailers, and also will include restaurants, other shops and a public plaza.
The development of Westgate Center has been years in the making.
The property, about a mile south of Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park, was a landfill as recently as the early 1960s and later a mobile home site, but has stood largely unused since the mid-1980s, becoming an eyesore and picking up the nickname “Sinkin’ Lincoln” because of sinkholes resulting from its days as a landfill.
The city bought the land in 2001, and soon after began negotiations with Zelman to redevelop the site once remediation work was completed.
A series of complications, including the 2012 dissolution of Anaheim’s redevelopment agency, kept a deal from being completed, although negotiations began to ramp up earlier this year.
A deal now appears close.
A public hearing on the potential sale of the city-owned property to Zelman is planned for Sept. 27, according to a public notice advertisement in last week’s Anaheim Bulletin.
The sale price has not been disclosed. City officials have said the land will be sold at fair market value.
Prior appraisals listed its value at $21 million as of 2010.
Timing
City officials said earlier this year that they expected construction at the Westgate Center project to begin within a year of the land sale being completed.
The project would be one of two developments that privately owned Zelman is working toward in Orange County.
In Yorba Linda, the company has been negotiating to buy a nearly 11-acre city-owned site near the intersection of Imperial Boulevard and Yorba Linda Boulevard, which would be turned into a retail project running close to 140,000 square feet.
The project, called Yorba Linda Town Center, is expected to feature a luxury movie theater, restaurants and other retailers.
Construction could begin later this year, assuming a sale for the land is completed; as of mid-August, the city of Yorba Linda and Zelman were still negotiating terms of the deal, according to city records.
Yorba Linda Town Center also has been a long time coming.
Discussion of building a central commercial development on the site began in the early 1990s, according to reports.
