A 601-unit apartment project has been proposed for a roughly six-acre site next to the Santa Ana Zoo that sold last year to a wealthy businessman from the Inland Empire.
Early-stage plans were filed this month with the city of Santa Ana for Prentice Park Residences, a mixed-use project that would be built on a parcel just west of the Santa Ana (5) Freeway and the city’s zoo.
The nearly block-long site at 1660 E. First St. is between Elk Lane and South Lyon Street. A portion of the land previously held the Saddleback Inn hotel, which was razed several years ago following a series of fires.
The Elks Lodge of Santa Ana also is on the land, and would be knocked down to make way for the proposed development.
The development’s apartment homes would be divided between one seven-story building and one five-story building, according to city filings.
The development also would include two levels of underground parking, a pool and spa, courtyards, public open space, fitness rooms, and a variety of other amenities, according to the filings.
About 10,000 square feet of commercial space would be on East First Street, according to the proposal from San Diego-based Wermers Properties, a multifamily developer heading the project’s entitlement.
The development would require approval of a general plan amendment, zone change and environmental review, city filings note.
The apartment project is the latest high-end rental community proposed or recently opened in Santa Ana. More than 3,000 new rental units are either under construction or in the planning stage, most of them part of midrise developments scattered across the city, according to city records.
Prentice Park Residences appears to be the second largest project being proposed in the city by unit count, trailing only a 1,221-apartment project called The Heritage that’s moving ahead at 2001 E. Dyer Road. That project, which is headed by Phoenix-based Alliance Residential, is on a former industrial site near the western edge of the Tustin Legacy development.
East First Street is one of the busiest areas for new rental projects in Santa Ana. Other recent developments on the street include Nineteen01, a 256-unit project about a quarter-mile from the Prentice Park Residences site on the opposite side of the freeway.
That development opened last year and was built by Newport Beach-based Lyon Living.
Troesh Connection
The development site was owned by the Elks Building Association until last May, when it sold to Santa Anna First Street LLC, an entity based out of Hendersonville, Nev., property records show.
CoStar Group Inc. put an estimated $18 million price on the sale of the site.
Details on the buyer were not disclosed at the time of the sale, but data gleaned from property and state records point to an entity headed by Dennis Troesh, a wealthy businessman and real estate investor from Riverside County, as the site’s owner.
Troesh previously owned Corona-based Robertson’s Ready Mix, one of the largest ready-mix and construction aggregate operations in the western United States.
Mitsubishi Materials Corp. in Japan bought out the company in 2013 for a reported $2.2 billion.
Troesh and various family members have been reported to be active real estate investors since the sale. He has been cited in national and trade reports as having partnered with other groups for a series of deals, including buys of large office properties in Florida, North Carolina and New Jersey.
He’s not known to own other significant holdings in Orange County, according to area brokers.
His largest investment in the Inland Empire appears to be medical-related and a matter of philanthropy— Troesh and his wife, Carol, pledged $100 million to Loma Linda University Health in 2014 to upgrade its medical campus.
The donation was said at the time to be the largest healthcare-related gift in Inland Empire history.
Another family member, Jeff Troesh, runs Corona-based Watermark Properties, a developer and investor that has worked with Wermers Properties on other area residential projects, including Adagio on the Green, a $130 million, 256-unit luxury apartment project recently built in Mission Viejo.
