For years, drivers stuck in traffic along the 405 Freeway in Costa Mesa got some free entertainment around this time of year, as Trinity Broadcasting staged an elaborate light show at its campus that used to run during the holidays.
The Christian media network occupied the ornate, 65K-SF campus that’s on the other side of the freeway as South Coast Plaza from the 1990s until 2017, when the first of several ownership changes took place.
Those sales also came with a variety of potential new uses for the site. In 2020, the site was expected to be converted into a new international education campus. The school plans never materialized.
In 2021, local real estate investor Manny Khoshbin paid a reported $22M for the site.
Creative office uses were cited as a possibility at the time of that sale, though that didn’t happen either; there’s been no reports of any leasing activity at the 3150 Bear St. site since the 2021 sale.
The property—now referred to as The Palazzo by Khoshbin—has been used for videos by Khoshbin to show off his collection of sports cars.
Is a new use, and new owner, in store? Brokerage marketing materials show that the Khoshbin Co. recently listed the site for sale, price undisclosed, with an eye on converting the 6-acre property into an apartment development.
“The city of Costa Mesa is in support of the redevelopment and rezoning of 3150 Bear as it is specifically located within the city’s Measure K rezoning area,” marketing documents say.
The number of apartments that could be built at the site weren’t cited in those documents.
Other nearby land in the city along the 405 eyed for multifamily uses has traded hands for as much as $4.5M an acre of late. A deal near that price would value the site around $27M.
Our front-page feature in this edition looks skyward, with the proliferation of defense-oriented drone makers expanding their operations in OC.
In South Coast Metro office market, there’s still an emphasis on road vehicles, it appears.
See Kaitlin Aquino’s front-page exclusive on 3 Hutton Center’s recent sale, to an entity with ties to Gardena’s Tireco, one of North America’s largest private brand marketers and distributors of tires.
That building is a few blocks away from the 1 MacArthur office tower that holds the domestic HQ of Yokohama Tire Corp.
Only a few people in SoCal have been responsible for as many good meals alongside the local freeways as In-N-Out Burger’s Robert Lang Sr.
In the early 1950s at age 19, he became co-manager of the In-N-Out in Baldwin Park, making him “the youngest store manager in the history of the company,” according to Lynsi Snyder.
Lang, who died on Nov. 28 at age 87, would later add the famed Double-Double to the now Irvine-based company’s menu when opening a new location in Azusa in 1966.
In-N-Out co-founder Harry Snyder soon added the company’s signature menu item to its other locations.
“He was many special things, and we sure owe him an awful lot,” Snyder said in an Instagram post.
