One of the most recognizable buildings in Orange County could be demolished and replaced with 146 residential units – with a division of Arizona-based Meritage Homes Corp. (NYSE: MTH) serving as the potential developer.
Costa Mesa’s city council members reviewed a plan earlier this month to replace the Trinity Broadcasting Network 6.2-acre campus with 126 townhomes and 20 single-family residences. The zoning equates to about 23.5 homes per acre.
MLC Holdings Inc., a subsidiary of Meritage Homes, had its representatives speak at the Costa Mesa City Council meeting on Sept. 3 and provide plans with the TBN property, located at 3150 Bear St.
Johanna Crooker, the director of forward planning and entitlements with MLC Holdings, wrote a letter to the city council in June that the homebuilder has signed an option contract with The Khoshbin Co., owner of the TBN campus, to purchase the property.
MLC Holdings is also asking the city of Costa Mesa to amend the property’s zoning to allow for “high density residential” and multifamily development.
“Meritage Homes believes that the housing proposed by this new community delivers the type of housing that is desperately needed in the region and throughout the state,” Crooker wrote in her letter to the city council.
MLC Holdings’ representatives who spoke at the Sept. 3 council meeting said the homebuilder would specifically build housing for first-time buyers and those seeking to transition from renting to home ownership.
Crooker also shared what the project’s footprint would look like if the current iteration of MLC Holdings’ plan moved forward.
MLC Holdings would demolish the entire TBN campus and replace those buildings with 20 two-floor detached homes and eight buildings with 126 attached homes.
The 20 detached homes would range from 1,400 to 1,891 square feet with three or four bedrooms and a two-car garage. The attached townhomes would feature floor plans with two to four bedrooms, ranging in size from 1,065 to 2,218 square feet. The attached homes would also include a two-car garage.
Costa Mesa’s city council must first approve the zoning change before Meritage Homes and MLC Holdings can go forward with its plans.
The Khoshbin Co.
Irvine-based commercial real estate firm The Khoshbin Co. bought the TBN campus, originally used as the home of Christian media network Trinity Broadcasting, in 2021 for $21 million and renamed it The Palazzo.
The campus, with its elaborately designed 65,652-square-foot building, is highly visible along the southern edge of the 405 Freeway, across from South Coast Plaza and near the Bristol Street exit.
Trinity Broadcasting stopped using the building and campus for its media operations in 2017.
Education First Properties proposed converting the TBN property into an “international language campus” in 2019, but that proposal died after the COVID-19 pandemic started.
Manny Khoshbin, CEO of The Khoshbin Co., originally planned to renovate the campus into a creative space.
Khoshbin is now working to sell the property to Meritage Homes and MLC Holdings.
The building and campus at 3150 Bear St. were built in 1976. Trinity Broadcasting Network converted the grounds into a campus that included filming studios, a theater, power building and outdoor parking facilities, according to CoStar.
