Laguna Niguel is getting a new city center as part of a mixed-use development that will add nearly 300 new homes, retail, office and restaurant space.
Newport Beach-based Burnham Ward Properties in 2019 proposed to develop the city center on a county-owned 24-acre site adjacent to Laguna Niguel City Hall, at Crown Valley Parkway and Alicia Parkway.
The development is envisioned as a proper downtown for Laguna Niguel, OC’s 16th-largest city with about 66,750 people.
Burnham Ward’s partner in the project is Irvine’s Sares Regis Group, an industrial and apartment developer. Sares Regis will handle the residential component at the Laguna Niguel site, expected to include 200 apartments and 75 townhomes with “resort-like amenities.”
Other components include 200,000 square feet of retail, office, and restaurant uses and a new County of Orange library, a rebuild of the center’s nearly 50-year-old library.
The project was initially expected to cost between $200 million and $220 million.
