The Segerstrom family is moving ahead with plans for a major mixed-use project across the street from South Coast Plaza, in what is likely to be the largest development plan in several decades for the family in Orange County.
Affiliates of C.J. Segerstrom & Sons—the firm that runs some of Costa Mesa’s most valuable commercial properties, including South Coast Plaza, the country’s largest luxury shopping center—has submitted plans for The Village Santa Ana.
The project, which sits on the opposite side of Sunflower Avenue as South Coast Plaza, aims to redevelop the family’s 17.2-acre South Coast Plaza Village shopping center into a new area with 1,583 residential units, up to 300,000 square feet of office and up to 80,000 square feet of retail space.
Assuming the mix of properties fit in with the high-end aesthetics of the family’s shopping center and collection of nearby office towers run under the South Coast Plaza Office Division name, the development when complete could approach $1.5 billion in value, the Business Journal estimates.
Renderings of the project indicate a mix of low-rise, mid-rise and high-rise buildings are under consideration for the project.
Hines Partnership
The revamped Village Santa Ana site will be heavily pedestrian-oriented, furthering the city’s vision to “transform conventional auto-oriented shopping plazas into dynamic nodes of activity that blend healthy living, working, shopping and dining in a contemporary village environment,” filings indicate.
Hines is heading development for the project on behalf of the Segerstrom family, according to August filings with the city of Santa Ana.
The Houston-based developer has been involved in numerous office, industrial, apartment and mixed-use developments in Orange County since breaking into the local market in 2005.
The Village, if approved, is expected to be delivered in phases over the next two decades.
Santa Ana Center
The project is the second sizeable retail overhaul proposed of late for the immediate area, joining a larger development from Related California, which has an adjacent mixed-use site spanning some 42 acres in the works.
Together, the two proposals aim to deliver about 5,333 homes and roughly 650,000 square feet of commercial space in Santa Ana.
Both sites sit across the street from Costa Mesa’s South Coast Plaza, the county’s highest-grossing mall with $2.4 billion in taxable sales last year. Each project requires Santa Ana city approval before moving ahead.
Event Hub
The existing South Coast Plaza Village was built in the 1970s and currently includes a mix of restaurants, art galleries and boutique retail stores totaling roughly 100,000 square feet.
It’s unknown if existing tenants at the center will be offered new spaces once The Village is complete.
Construction for the upcoming Village will proceed in five phases that “reflect anticipated market conditions,” filings note.
The first three phases will include 1,050 residential units and 73,175 square feet of retail space; the fourth phase will include all of the planned office product with the remaining 6,825 square feet of retail; and the final phase will include the remaining 269 residential units.
The residential portion of the project will total nearly 1.9 million square feet when completed; filings don’t specify the breakdown of for-sale and for-rent units being considered.
Residents and visitors of The Village will enjoy 3.3 acres of open space. The project also includes 3,520 parking spaces.
An outdoor area designed for events is also included in the plans, which will be available to use for “yoga and fitness classes, parties, markets and outdoor movie nights,” filings indicate.
The project also features a “Fitness Loop,” which runs the perimeter of the site and a bicycle network.
The project “will be an extension of the Segerstrom family’s high-quality work and legacy over the last 125 years—promoting community-centered investments that support local culture and organizations and encourage successful business development,” the family said in filings with the city.
Private financing mechanisms are expected to fund the buildout of the project, the developer said.
Related Bristol
Adjacent to Segerstrom’s The Village is a larger project in the works from Irvine-based Related California.
The estimated $3 billion project, dubbed Related Bristol, proposes 3,750 apartment units built in mid-rise structures; 350,000 square feet of retail, dining and commercial uses; 200 senior housing units; and a 250-room premium hotel.
The project’s plans were first publicly disclosed about a year ago. The developer is currently on track to present the project to city council for approval this fall.
The similarly pedestrian-oriented Related Bristol is among the larger mixed-use projects planned in the state for Related California, a unit of N.Y.-based real estate giant Related Companies.
The site, once used as a lima bean and sugar beets farm and now the The Metro Town Square mall, is now overseen by three arms of the Callens family who will retain ownership of the land following the Related-overseen redevelopment.
Related Bristol is expected to generate $10.7 million for Santa Ana annually and create 5,900 construction jobs and 1,600 permanent jobs, according to the developer.
Apartment Demand
Both The Village and Related Bristol are among the largest development projects in the works in Orange County.
Santa Ana has been seeing notable interest from apartment developers in recent years as the county attempts to meet housing goals as dictated by the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA).
The city saw about 1,900 units delivered since the start of last year. Developers have tapped underutilized office and industrial sites, as well as vacant land, to add housing to once commercial-heavy corridors.
That trend is continuing with OC’s largest apartment project that is currently under construction: Greystar Real Estate Partners last June broke ground on Warner, a 1,100-unit apartment complex at 2320 Redhill Ave. in Santa Ana on a 15-acre parcel previously used by Ricoh Electronics.
Santa Ana’s recent apartment additions, along with other big projects in the works, could help stem the tide in the city, which last year saw its population fall under 300,000 for the first time since the mid-1990s, according to state figures.
The 4,628 drop in estimated population last year was the most of any city in California with a population under 300,000, according to the state’s May figures, which counted 299,630 residents in Santa Ana.