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Santa Ana OKs City’s Largest Development

The largest private investment for a development project in Santa Ana’s history was green-lit by the City Council on Oct. 1, opening the door for Related California to convert 41 acres of land into a mixed-use destination with apartments, cafés, outdoor spaces, restaurants, shops and other uses across from South Coast Plaza.

The $3 billion redevelopment project would be built in multiple phases over a 10-year period.

Santa Ana’s council members unanimously approved the overhaul of the Metro Town Square shopping center, being developed by Irvine’s Related California, two weeks after they initially held a public hearing on the pro-posed development.

The council vote must still go through a second reading, expected to be held Oct. 15.

Council decisions are rarely overturned on second reading, however, and Related California would move forward with its plans should the next vote be recorded in the affirmative.

“Our hope is Related Bristol will serve as a catalyst for future generations to live, work and visit Santa Ana,” Related California Executive Vice President Steven Oh said in a statement.

The developer, which has built more than 20,700 housing units in California, said Related Bristol would be “the largest private in-vestment in Santa Ana’s long history.”
13 Acres Devoted to Open Spaces

The 41-acre site, known as Callens Common and Metro Town Square, would be rede-veloped into a mixed-use project with up to 3,750 residential units, 200 units of senior housing, 350,000 square feet of commercial space and a 150,000-square-foot, 250-room hotel.

The redeveloped shopping center would also include more than 13 acres of open space, featuring outdoor plazas, water features, gar-dens and pedestrian-only paseos.
Related California said its redevelopment of Metro Town Center would “significantly boost the Santa Ana region” by generating$500 million in new net revenue for the city of Santa Ana within the project’s first 30 years, plus $544 million in community benefits and 16,800 new jobs.

The community benefits include a $22 mil-lion contribution toward Santa Ana’s Com-munity Benefit Fund. The contribution could help pay for a multi-use community center, affordable housing, public art or fire and life safety improvements in Santa Ana.

Related California would also make a $16 million contribution to Santa Ana’s afford-able housing initiatives.

Metro Town Square is a shopping center on Bristol Street, with 460,000 square feet of commercial space but no hotel, open space, residential or senior living components. Ten-ants occupying space at at the aging center include Starbucks, Jack in the Box, Sleep Number, Esporta Fitness, Kumon, Baja Fish Tacos, Bank of America and America’s Best Contacts & Eyeglasses, according to CoStar data.

Related California is slated to begin construction on the project in early 2026, with various stages of construction continuing through 2036.

The Irvine-based Related California, an arm of New York-based real estate giant Relate Companies, agreed to a 99-year ground lease for the property, a former lima bean farm operated by the Callens family.

The development team includes Related California as developer, Gehl as design consultant, Robert A.M. Stern Architects as the architect-of-record, Elkus Manfredi Architects as interior architect and RIOS as outdoor spaces and landscaping engineer. Fuscoe Engineering is the civil engineer on the project.

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Sonia Chung
Sonia Chung
Sonia Chung joined the Orange County Business Journal in 2021 as their Marketing Creative Director. In her role she creates all visual content as it relates to the marketing needs for the sales and events teams. Her responsibilities include the creation of marketing materials for six annual corporate events, weekly print advertisements, sales flyers in correspondence to the editorial calendar, social media graphics, PowerPoint presentation decks, e-blasts, and maintains the online presence for Orange County Business Journal’s corporate events.
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