A long-vacant JCPenney store in Orange has traded hands and will likely to be demolished to make way for a new multifamily development.
The 102,000-square-foot, freestanding property within the Village at Orange shopping center, sold for $17.4 million, or about $170 per square foot.
Newport Beach-based residential developer Integral Communities bought the 7.8-acre site, which has been vacant since 2017, when the store was one of some 140 to close nationwide.
The site at one time was eyed for a retail makeover alongside the rest of the Village at Orange; those plans did not move ahead.
CBRE Group Inc. handled the JCPenney listing on behalf of a venture between Sonoma-based investor A&C Ventures and Larkspur’s Argonaut Investments, which owned the property since 2011, when it paid a reported $8.3 million for the 2200 N. Tustin St. building.
Lyon Ties
Integral has not announced its plans for the Orange site, or a development partner.
Integral has often partnered with Lyon Living, a Newport Beach-based multifamily firm affiliated with the late Gen. William Lyon and his family, for its local apartment development projects.
These include The George, a 340-unit project in the Platinum Triangle of Anaheim; The Marke, a 300-unit apartment project in the South Coast Metro market; and the 294-unit Nineteen01 development in Santa Ana, which was built in 2016 and sold last July for $98 million to Newport Beach-based Cadigan Communities.
Lyon Living and Integral are currently building a five-story, 215-unit apartment project in Placentia next to the under-construction Metrolink Station.
The company bought the just-sold site at 1901 E. First St. in 2012, which previously held a 167,000-square-foot office building.
The duo also have partnered together with other projects outside of Orange County in Northern California.
Property records indicate Integral got a $10.5 million loan from California Bank & Trust to fund the JCPenney site.
The Business Journal has previously reported that Integral is backed in part by Vinny Smith, the former chief executive of Quest Software and now one of the area’s top venture capitalists through his Toba Capital.
More in Works?
JCPenney, which recently filed for bankruptcy protection, said early this month it will close more than 150 stores across the country in the next few months.
It still had a quartet of locations in Orange County that are open; none of those sites are earmarked for the latest round of closures.
