Big changes could be in the works for a large industrial property just off the Costa Mesa (55) Freeway in Santa Ana.
Redevelopment plans have been filed with Santa Ana’s planning department for a roughly 25-acre site at 666 E. Dyer Road a few blocks west of the 55 Freeway and near a concentration of hotels that run alongside it.
The site currently holds about 360,000 square feet of industrial space. It’s owned and occupied by ITT Corp., a White Plains, N.Y.-based company that makes a variety of high-tech products.
The company’s market value is about $3.5 billion.
ITT’s Interconnect Solutions’ Cannon brand, which makes connector products serving the aerospace, defense, medical, energy and other industries, has local operations at the Santa Ana facility and at a smaller location in the Irvine Spectrum that it leases.
The fate of the Santa Ana spot is unclear; real estate brokers familiar with the property tell the Business Journal that it’s been listed for sale, although a potential buyer hadn’t been disclosed.
ITT officials noted last year that it has been transferring more work from Santa Ana to another facility it owns in Texas. The single-story OC facility on Dyer Road was built in 1970, according to CoStar Group Inc. records.
Filings with the city of Santa Ana show a multibuilding industrial campus has been proposed for the site.
The existing facility would be demolished to make way for a nine-building industrial development totaling 495,667 square feet, according to preliminary city filings.
It wasn’t disclosed in the filings if ITT or another firm would head development or if ITT would utilize any of the new buildings. City documents say the project is in site-plan review.
The largest of the proposed buildings would be about 166,000 square feet. Two others would be close to 70,000 square feet each, and the remainder would be in the 25,000-square-foot range, filings show.
Some mezzanine and office space would be included in each building, along with core industrial space.
It’s the only significant industrial development proposed for Santa Ana, where a number of older industrial buildings have been razed in the past few years to make way for apartment development.
Drive-Thru Decision
Drivers taking the 55 Freeway to Newport Beach, particularly summer beach-goers, have become accustomed to a heavy dose of traffic around where the freeway ends and Newport Boulevard begins in Costa Mesa.
Under a proposed development that’s been filed with Costa Mesa’s planning department, they at least would be able to grab a chicken sandwich on the way through the traffic.
Plans have been filed with the city to replace the site that previously held the well-known Grant Boys outdoor store at the intersection of Newport Boulevard and Rochester Street with a Chick-Fil-A drive-thru restaurant.
Grant Boys, which sold a collection of fishing gear, guns, and camping products, closed more than a year ago. The site is owned by a local family trust, according to property records.
The proposed restaurant would run 1,999 square feet, according to city filings. It would also include a double drive-thru lane but no indoor seating.
A walk-up window would serve pedestrian customers, and there would be enough outdoor seating for about 30 customers, according to initial plans filed with the city.
Chick-Fil-A runs similar restaurants outside of Orange County with no indoor seating. A similarly sized restaurant in Escondido averages about 1,440 car trips per day, and a similar amount of volume is anticipated for the Costa Mesa location, filings show. That doesn’t include walk-up traffic.
A change in the plans appears likely in order to get the city’s blessing.
Traffic and density concerns have thus far prompted Costa Mesa’s planning department to recommend against approving the project.
