A roughly two-mile stretch of land along Katella Avenue in Anaheim could well be considered the hub of infill redevelopment in Orange County.
A surge of new hotels and apartments are being built or are on the verge of groundbreaking on Katella between Angel Stadium in the Platinum Triangle and the under-expansion convention center in the Resort District.
The next big wave of infill development could happen on the same street, thought 10 miles to the west in neighboring cities. A two-mile portion of Katella that runs from the Los Angeles-Orange county line near the San Gabriel River (605) Freeway in Los Alamitos to Valley View Street in Cypress is busy with potential development opportunities, including home and commercial projects.
Nearly 60 acres in the immediate area are being considered for projects. That jumps to 215 acres when planning for potential redevelopment of the Los Alamitos Race Course is factored in, assuming the owners of the area’s long-running horse racing hub ever opt to shutter their massive venue and sell the land in the next decade or two.
Senior Homes
One big name in OC real estate circles, Newport Beach-based William Lyon Homes, has already committed to building a large housing project in the area, and several other notable commercial developers plan to follow with projects of their own, or are in talks with city officials to build there.
“It’s an area we like a lot. We’ve had a lot of success in the city,” said William Lyon Chief Executive Matthew Zaist after his company’s estimated $55 million buy of a 28-acre site on Katella in Cypress.
The builder’s planning a 244-unit housing project at the site, which sits next to the block-long Cottonwood Church property just south of the race course. Barton Place will be for residents older than 55 and is the first OC project of William Lyon’s new Ovation line for that buyer’s market. It acquired the property this month in one of the largest residential land buys of the past year.
Sales should start early next year at the site, which held a golf course that shuttered more than a decade ago and is currently fenced off. William Lyon has nearly sold out another nearby housing project, the 47-unit MacKay Place.
“We’re trying to get this open by early next year,” Zaist said.
Barton Place would be the largest new for-sale housing development in West OC and one of the largest infill housing developments in the area in nearly a decade.
San Francisco-based industrial developer Prologis previously planned a big distribution facility at the site but backed away after facing backlash from residential neighbors concerned about noise and traffic issues.
Retail Projects
Five additional acres next to the Barton Place site are being held onto by an affiliate of Newport Beach-based Province Group LLC for a retail project. It bought the site about three years ago and would likely sell the land to a different developer before construction started. It’s proposed a specialty grocery store for the project, according to local news reports.
A few other notable retail projects are planned nearby. Two blocks east of Barton Place in Cypress, a 13.3-acre city-owned site on Katella has gotten early attention from developers.
What’s known as the Winners Circle site was previously used as a Los Alamitos Race Course parking lot. As of earlier this month, it was being used as a staging site for a trucking company.
At least two commercial developers, Aliso Viejo-based Shea Properties and El Segundo-based CenterCal Properties LLC, have expressed interest in the property, according to city records from early this year.
Shea Properties has proposed a four-story 100-unit hotel, restaurants, a movie theater and grocery store, while CenterCal hasn’t provided specific details of its plan, according to a report in January.
Officials representing Shea said this month that they were still involved in the RFP process. The city’s decision-making time frame hasn’t been disclosed.
Grocery
Grocery store development has been a common thread among many development sites now being considered.
At a 9-acre site next to Los Alamitos’ city hall, the Irvine office of Lincoln Property Co. plans a retail development called Village 605 that would be about 110,000 square feet. The site, just off the 605 Freeway, is slated to hold OC’s first 365 by Whole Foods Market, a grocery store concept that will offer lower prices than traditional Whole Foods stores.
Lincoln Property bought the 3131 Katella Ave. property in 2014 for a reported $13 million. It plans a groundbreaking later this year, although it’s still finalizing plans and determining the rest of the tenant mix.
It’s one of three new retail projects Lincoln Property has in Orange County. This month, it opened Trade, a redeveloped shopping center it owns in Irvine’s airport area that’s anchored by the city’s first upscale food hall.
The developer also plans to build a food hall in the first stage of development of Flight, a multibuilding creative-office campus at Tustin Legacy that’s scheduled to break ground this year.
