San Diego-based Garden Communities of California has disclosed plans for its third big apartment development in Irvine, an 876-unit complex next to John Wayne Airport.
The apartment developer last month filed papers with Irvine’s planning commission to construct a multibuilding complex called Trilogy that would go up on the current site of a six-building portfolio of offices it owns.
It bought the property, which is part of the Colton Plaza mixed-use development, about a year ago in a deal that CoStar Group Inc. records show is worth close to $80 million.
Affiliates of Irvine-based Colton Co., developer of the namesake office campus, sold the buildings. Colton Co. had been in talks with the city to entitle the 12.6-acre site for residential uses at the time.
Garden Communities has been working with Irvine-based Starpointe Ventures on entitlement work for the proposed development since the deal closed. The mix of low-rise offices it bought is between MacArthur Boulevard and Von Karman Avenue immediately north of Campus Drive.
It plans to raze the buildings to make way for three six-story apartment buildings.
The development would also include three six-story parking structures that would include a rooftop deck, swimming pool, spa, and bowling alley among them, in addition to a three-story fitness facility of about 13,700 square feet, and a one-acre park.
Units at the complex would range from 595-square-foot studio apartments to three-bedroom units topping 1,500 square feet, according to city filings.
A portion of the project could open in two or three years, Garden Communities officials said.
The company proposes paying the city $1 million at the issuance of the first residential building permit to offset some development-intensity issues at the site, according to city filings.
Third Project
Trilogy would be the second largest apartment development in the Irvine Business Complex for the largest active apartment developer in the 2,800-acre, largely commercial area around the airport.
The company’s apartment pipeline in the IBC—where more than 7,000 residential units have been built over the past decade—approaches 3,000 units.
No other area developer has more than a thousand units in the works there, according to city filings.
Garden Communities is owned by the Wilf family, whose affiliated companies reportedly own more than 90,000 apartment units and numerous commercial properties across the country. The family’s best-known member is Zygi Wilf, owner of the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings.
The company has a 1,600-unit residential project called Elements that’s been under way for a little more than a year a few blocks from the Colton Plaza site near the corner of Jamboree Road and Campus Drive. It bought the roughly 23 acres in a series of transactions between 2013 and early 2015 estimated at about $130 million.
The first phase of the Elements project—where amenities include a bowling alley, restaurants, a rooftop swimming pool and fitness center—could open this year, according to prior statements from the developer.
The company’s other development in Irvine is on the other side of the San Diego (405) Freeway on Main Street, where construction is proceeding on its 9-acre, 457-apartment Metropolis project. It bought the land for the project in 2012 for an undisclosed price.
Metropolis units, like those at Trilogy will run from smaller studios to three-bedroom apartments.
The project is now preleasing with an expectation of an opening this year at monthly rents ranging from $1,975 to $3,875, according to the company’s website.
Amenities at Metropolis include a saltwater swimming pool and spa, bowling alley, game lounge, tech lounge, and fitness center.
