The Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange appears to be helping pay for its new home at Christ Cathedral in Garden Grove, and for additional facilities it plans in Santa Ana, one residential land deal at a time.
The affiliate of the 10th-largest Roman Catholic diocese in the U.S. recently closed on the sale of 6.7 acres on West MacArthur Boulevard in Santa Ana to Walnut-based Shea Homes.
The vacant land at 2001 W. MacArthur Blvd. sold for just under $15.9 million, about $2.4 million an acre, according to records from market tracker CoStar Group Inc.
Shea Homes plans a 42-home gated community at the site next to Segerstrom High School and the Christ Our Savior Catholic Parish church. It’s less than a mile from Costa Mesa’s glitzy South Coast Plaza mall.
The Artisan at South Coast project will consist of single-family homes ranging from 2,819 square feet to 3,038 square feet, according to city filings. The two-story homes will have at least three bedrooms and four bathrooms.
Construction could start this month and should take about 18 months, according to city filings from late last year.
Marywood Awaits
Shea Homes’ buy is one of the largest infill land deals involving stand-alone homes to close in the vicinity of South Coast Plaza in several years. But it’s not the only recent notable Orange County land deal the church has made with an area builder.
Two years ago, Aliso Viejo-based New Home Co. paid a reported $19 million for Marywood Center in Orange, the 15-acre former administrative headquarters of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange.
The church offices were torn down to make way for the 40-home, high-end Marywood Hills project. New Home executives said late last year that they planned an April opening of models and homes in the 4,000-square-foot range. Pricing hasn’t been announced.
The sale came as the diocese worked to raise money for the 2012 acquisition and renovation of the former Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, a 34-acre property that’s been converted from a Protestant worship center into one of the West Coast’s most prominent centers of Catholicism.
It cost the church about $57.5 million to buy it, and tens of millions more to renovate the former Robert Schuller-ministry property, which had fallen into bankruptcy.
Funds from the latest Santa Ana land sale could end up being used for a different development.
The church is planning development of its own for its existing property next to Shea’s new land, according to city filings.
It wants to raze the existing modular facilities on the 8-acre Alton Avenue site and build a 19,427-square-foot church, a 6,004-square-foot parish center, a 4,850-square-foot meeting room, and a 16,024-square-
foot church.
The proposed development is under site review.
Changed Plans
The church bought the eight acres, and the adjacent 6.7-acre land site now owned by Shea Homes, more than a decade ago from the Segerstrom family. It’s part of 90 acres known as Armstrong Ranch.
The ranch was “historically used as an agricultural parcel until the late 1990s, when the former owners ceased use of the site as a lima bean field and initiated the necessary entitlements for development,” city filings say.
The entire 14-acre site was previously considered for a 2,700-seat, 100,000-square-foot Cathedral Parish church entitled in 2004.
Prior to submitting plans for the larger project, “the Diocese was able to purchase the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, thereby eliminating the need for Cathedral on the subject site,” city filings note.
The current church facilities on the site were built as temporary structures, with the expectation of building a more permanent facility later.
