Real estate investor and developer Greenlaw Partners is pushing ahead with plans to build more than 900 apartments and for-sale homes and a hotel in separate projects on land it owns in Orange and Irvine.
The Irvine-based company recently filed early-stage planning documents with the city of Orange for a trio of midrise apartment complexes on property surrounding the Outlets of Orange, the nearly 900,000-square-foot mall just off the Garden Grove (22) Freeway that’s Orange County’s eighth largest shopping center by sales.
Greenlaw bought a number of office properties next to the mall, including the 19-story City Plaza tower, as well as land next to the buildings, in a series of transactions between 2010 and 2014 that totaled $130 million.
It now owns the bulk of the major commercial buildings on the western edge of the shopping center, which is owned by Indianapolis-based Simon Property Group.
Simon recently announced expansion plans of its own to increase the retail property’s size by 60,000 square feet.
Filings made with the city this month show Greenlaw is proposing three stand-alone apartment projects: the 277-unit 3800 Chapman Apartments, the 213-unit City Parkway West Apartments, and the 331-unit City Plaza Apartments.
The complexes would fall under the “Orange Collection” banner, according to city filings. Some of the land now used as surface parking for Greenlaw’s office buildings would be converted to multilevel parking structures to handle the additional density from the projects. None of the existing offices that Greenlaw owns would be affected by the construction.
Greenlaw is also proposing a six-story, 165-room hotel referred to in city filings as the City Plaza Hotel. A brand or operator hasn’t been disclosed.
Irvine-based architecture firm KTGY is working with Greenlaw on the Orange projects, as is Newport Beach-based entitlement consulting firm Diamond Star Associates.
Irvine For-Sale
Greenlaw has another residential proposal in the works on a 6-acre site it owns just off MacArthur Boulevard in the Irvine Business Complex about half a mile from John Wayne Airport.
The company last month filed plans with Irvine’s planning commission to demolish the 125,000-square-foot industrial building it owns at 17822 Gillette Ave. and build in its place a 137-unit residential project.
Plans now call for a for-sale townhome development with individual buildings three stories high, according to city filings.
Units would average about 1,700 square feet, some with as many as four bedrooms. The community would be gated, according to city filings.
Greenlaw bought the industrial property in 2014 for a reported $18 million.
The proposed projects in Orange and Irvine are the largest local sites it has sought to get entitled for residential development since it got a nearly 23-acre chunk of commercial land off Jamboree Road in Irvine zoned for apartment uses a few years ago.
The land, close to the Irvine-Newport Beach city line, was sold to San Diego-based apartment owner Garden Communities of California in a pair of transactions in 2013 and 2014 that brought $130 million.
Garden Communities now is proceeding with construction of a 1,600-unit complex called Elements.
Medical Buy
Privately held Greenlaw, owner of the Triangle shopping center in Costa Mesa and numerous office properties across Orange County, has remained active on the investment front early this year.
The company last month partnered with a fund advised by UBS Realty Investors LLC to buy Saddleback Valley Medical Center, a 135,904-square-foot medical office property in Laguna Hills.
The 2.6-acre property, on the campus of Saddleback Memorial Medical Center, sold for $34.5 million, according to brokerage HFF LP, whose Todd Sugimoto and Jeff Sause arranged the joint venture and financing for the acquisition.
The deal works out to a price of nearly $254 per square foot. An affiliate of Chicago-based Lillibridge Healthcare Services Inc. was the seller, according to CoStar Group Inc. records.
The medical center was renovated in 2014. It’s now being leased out and is about 60% occupied, according to brokerage records.
