C.J. Segerstrom & Sons, whose family affiliates own and operate South Coast Plaza, Orange County’s most valuable shopping center, as well as some of the best-known office towers in the South Coast Metro area, is gearing up for its largest ground-up development in years.
In a twist, the project they are planning is neither a retail development nor an office project.
The long-time area land and property owner is instead looking to build a three-building industrial park at a roughly 10-acre site it owns in Santa Ana, at W. Lake Center Drive and S. Susan Drive.
The 313,000-square-foot project, with an estimated cost of more than $126 million, is dubbed South Coast Technology Center.
It will take the place of Lake Center Office Park, a three-building Segerstrom-owned office complex that’s more than 30 years old and runs about 180,000 square feet.
Santa Ana’s city council on Aug. 6 approved the developer’s plans for the project, which is located some two miles west of Costa Mesa’s South Coast Plaza, the Segerstrom family’s best-known property in OC.
Continuing Trend
The project looks set to become one of the more prominent office-to-industrial conversion projects in Santa Ana; numerous similar projects have been proposed across OC the past three years, amid falling interest for older office space post-COVID, and rising demand for modern warehouse and logistics facilities in the county.
OC’s base of industrial buildings, totaling some 237.9 million square feet of rentable space, counted a vacancy rate of just 4.2% as of mid-year, according to data from local brokerage Voit Real Estate Services.
It said that while the vacancy rate has more than doubled in the past year, it “remains low by historic standards.”
The county’s base of offices, running about 103.9 million square feet, counts a much higher vacancy rate of 16%.
A timeline for demolishing Lake Center Office Park and starting the new project hasn’t been disclosed. As of last week, demolition work hadn’t begun.
South Coast Technology Center Community Liaison Marice DePasquale did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but she previously told the Business Journal that the new industrial park could welcome tenants as early as 2025, assuming timelines for permitting and construction progress as anticipated.
Future-Proofing
The city’s approval notes that the redeveloped site could be used for light industrial uses and include corporate offices, research and development space, light manufacturing and warehousing.
South Coast Technology Center, according to the most up-to-date plans, would replace three dilapidated and vacant buildings with three class A industrial flex buildings totaling 313,000 square feet.
“The project will include outdoor patios, landscaping, surface parking, [electric vehicle] charging stations, a community park and improvements to nearby streets and sidewalks,” according to a city of Santa Ana statement.
“The 313,000-square-foot complex will future-proof the business center by introducing new allowed uses reflecting current and future economic trends,” the city statement continued.
Busy City
South Coast Technology Center is one of several major development projects the city of Santa Ana is reviewing. Those projects, according to a city statement, could produce a windfall of 687 permanent jobs and an annual infusion of $256.1 million in goods and services for Santa Ana.
One of those projects is The Village of Santa Ana, a mixed-use development also proposed by C.J. Segerstrom & Sons and could bring 1,583 residential units and nearly 400,000 square feet of office and retail space adjacent to South Coast Plaza.
That project would go up at the current site of the South Coast Village shopping center, which is over 50 years old.
Next door to that retail center is another older retail project, the Metro Town Square Mall, which is being eyed for a $3 billion redevelopment by Related California. See page 8 for more on that 42-acre project, dubbed Related Bristol.
“We are ushering in a new era of development with the adoption of our new General Plan in 2022, and our efforts to comprehensively update the City’s Zoning Code and revitalize Santa Ana’s key economic engines,” Santa Ana Mayor Valerie Amezcua said in a statement.
“Industrial districts are significant sources of employment and municipal revenue, and they contribute to the economic health of the city and the region.”
