Chicago-based Tribune Media Co. appears to be expanding its development plans in Costa Mesa.
A real estate subsidiary of the media company—the former owner of the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, among other daily newspapers—last month closed on the purchase of a 4-acre parcel on Harbor Boulevard in Costa Mesa that’s a few blocks north of the San Diego (I-405) Freeway.
The land, at 3370 Harbor Blvd., currently holds a youth sports complex, including a baseball field. It sold for about $6.3 million, or nearly $1.6 million an acre, according to market tracker CoStar.
The land was bought by 3370 Harbor LLC, a Chicago-based entity that lists the same address as Tribune Media, according to state records.
The just-acquired land sits on the western edge of another, larger Tribune Media-owned property, which is on Sunflower Avenue.
North of Ikea
That 21-acre site, just north of the Ikea shopping center, holds a 250,000-square-foot industrial facility that previously served as a printing plant, distribution center, newsroom, and administrative office for the Los Angeles Times but hasn’t been fully occupied in years.
Tribune Real Estate Holdings LLC announced in January that it was seeking a development partner for the vacant property, at 1375 Sunflower Ave.
Real estate sources familiar with the site expect a mixed-use development, most likely featuring apartments, to be proposed for the site.
The just-acquired land along Harbor Boulevard is expected to be incorporated into those plans and would likely serve as the main entrance into the development, according to the sources.
The same sources tell the Business Journal that Kearny Real Estate Co., a Los Angeles-based real estate investor, is expected to be selected as the media company’s development partner for the project.
Representatives of Kearny last week declined to comment on their potential involvement in the project.
No formal filing for the Sunflower Avenue redevelopment project has been filed with the city, and a time frame for the project moving ahead has not been disclosed.
Costa Mesa planning officials said they had heard that the sports facility was purchased to be added to the larger development site, but that nothing official had been announced or filed with the city as of last week.
While Tribune Media hasn’t disclosed a development plan for the Costa Mesa site, plenty of others have taken a stab at reimagining the property, which is bounded by Sunflower Avenue to the north, South Coast Drive to the south, Susan Street to the east, and Harbor Boulevard to the west.
The site was used in last year’s NAIOP SoCal Real Estate Challenge, an annual event that pits University of California-Los Angeles graduate students against their peers at the University of Southern California to come up with the best development plan for a local real estate property.
UCLA’s team won last November’s event, proposing The Platform, a mixed-use development that includes 400 apartments and creative-office space, in a design that targeted younger residents.
Other features of the winning plan included the conversion of an existing rail spur at the plant into “food trains,” or boxcars converted into restaurants, as well as 6 acres of green space.
It’s unknown whether the city would be in favor of converting the L.A. Times industrial site into apartments. The property has an assessed value of about $11.5 million.
Tribune Media last year spun off the L.A. Times, Chicago Tribune and eight other daily newspapers into a new venture known as Tribune Publishing Co., while retaining a real estate portfolio totaling close to 8 million square feet, in addition to a number of television stations and other business lines.
Downtown LA
Tribune Media’s real estate subsidiary is looking to redevelop other properties it owns across the country, including an 8-acre property it owns in downtown Los Angeles.
The Harbor Boulevard property that Tribune Media bought in August last traded hands in 2011 for a little more than $3.3 million, according to CoStar records.
The formerly vacant site was turned into a sports complex known as Sun Devil Field following the 2011 sale. The city approved an eight-year conditional use permit for the sports facility in 2012.
