Lennar Corp. has bought a sizeable infill housing development site in downtown Anaheim, in what looks to be the homebuilder’s largest purchase in the city in several years.
The Miami-based builder, whose day-to-day operations are largely run out of its Aliso Viejo office, last month completed the buy of the La Palma Village development site, a roughly seven-acre property about a mile north of Anaheim City Hall and the city’s Colony Historic District.
The land deal includes a number of parcels at the northeast corner of the intersection of West La Palma Boulevard and North Anaheim Boulevard.
The site previously held an assortment of industrial buildings that were razed in the past year.
An affiliate of Lennar paid about $20.5 million for the land, or roughly $2.9 million per acre, according to property records.
It was sold by an affiliate of Integral Partners, a Newport Beach-based development group that shepherded the La Palma Village project through the entitlement process over the past few years.
La Palma Village calls for about 160 homes in a mix of townhomes, duplexes and corner flats, as well as a small amount of retail space, likely to hold a coffee shop or similar store.
The residences would range in size from 1,450 square feet to 2,542 and include two- or three-car garages and surface parking, according to city filings from last year. A recreation room and swimming pool are also part of the development.
City officials say construction should begin in a few months and be completed in the latter half of next year.
The project, less than a mile south of the Riverside (91) Freeway and a little more than a mile from the Santa Ana (5) Freeway, “is ideally located for commuters who work throughout Orange County,” according to Integral’s marketing materials for the project.
Integral wants the development to appeal to “new families, second time homebuyers, and empty nesters who seek an urbanized living experience.”
Busy Area
The deal adds to a string of residential transactions of infill sites in downtown Anaheim, an area that’s seen a surge of development interest in recent years.
The largest residential project under way in the vicinity of La Palma Village is Alexan Uptown Anaheim, a 200-unit apartment and retail project at Anaheim Boulevard and Lincoln Avenue about a mile from Lennar’s latest buy.
Alexan Uptown is being headed by Trammell Crow Residential, which estimates an opening late next year. The midrise development is going up on a site last used by AT&T.
Elsewhere in the area, Irvine’s Shopoff Realty Investments is looking to turn a 21-acre industrial site in downtown Anaheim into a development of more than 500 homes, townhomes and apartments.
On the commercial side, a number of retail and restaurants developments are being built along the Center Street Promenade and close to the Anaheim Packing House food hall, including multiple ones by Costa Mesa-based LAB Holding LLC.
A-Town, Altair
Lennar, one of the country’s largest homebuilders, with a market value of $12.1 billion, doesn’t list any Anaheim projects among its OC portfolio of for-sale communities, and it hasn’t opened a for-sale housing project larger than 100 units in the city in several years.
Its LMC affiliate, which builds large apartment projects, has one development under way in the city, its A-Town project on Katella Avenue in the Platinum Triangle. The first phase of the 41-acre project, a 400-unit apartment complex, is well under way, with framing work completed for a large portion of the rental units.
Lennar bought the land for A-Town more than a decade ago, with initial plans calling for a number of high-rises on the site a few blocks from Angel Stadium.
The recession put those plans on hold, and the company eventually switched gears to building between 1,400 and 1,746 midrise residential units there, with LMC—which also operates as Lennar Multifamily Communities—taking over the development.
Lennar has a number of projects under way in other parts of the county, including multiple on the former El Toro Marine Base in Irvine, where it is a part owner.
Its latest project there, a high-end, 840-home project called Altair, opened for sales in June, although model homes haven’t been completed for the gated community, which Lennar is developing in a venture with Horsham, Pa.-based Toll Brothers Inc.
Altair is just north of the Great Park Neighborhoods master development, where Lennar is also active.
