Irvine Site Of Languishing Hotel Mixed-Use Project Now Slated For Industrial Development

A long-vacant site in Irvine near the John Wayne Airport once slated to become a mixed-use hotel concept has traded hands for $38.6M. 

The buyer, Black Creek Group, plans to develop a 140K SF industrial development at the site. 

The seller was HJ Capital Group, now called WGE Capital Group, an Irvine-based firm that bought the site for $33.3M two years ago, the Orange County Business Journal reported. The company was in default on a property loan, and a trustee sale had been scheduled for Nov. 4. The deal with Black Creek Group closed on Nov. 1, according to the Journal. 

Black Creek hasn’t yet filed plans with the city of Irvine but is planning a 140K SF industrial project, the Journal reported.

The sale seems to signal the end of the line for previous plans to turn the property into the 700K SF Banc Hotel mixed-use development. The project, which was approved in 2019, would have included a 258-room hotel, more than 140K SF of office, a nine-story parking structure, a medical office building, a fitness center and a food hall-type facility. 

The project was expected to kick off at the start of 2020, according to the Orange County Register, but construction has yet to begin at the site, the Journal reports. 

Industrial space in Orange County is tight, as it is in many other locations in Southern California. Q3 numbers for the county indicate that industrial vacancy is at 1.7%, according to Kidder Mathews. The Journal, citing numbers from Voit Real Estate Services, found vacancy around the airport area specifically to be less than 1%.

Elsewhere in Orange County, Black Creek Group has purchased office space with the end goal of replacing it with industrial uses.