Little Saigon Mixed-Use Development Approved By Westminster City Council
The Westminster City Council recently approved a 6-acre mixed-use development on Brookhurst Street and Bolsa Avenue, considered the gateway to Westminster’s Little Saigon district.
The Bolsa Row mixed-use development in Westminster will feature a festival street, where visitors and residents could gather and celebrate special occasions; a landmark tower reminiscent of old Vietnam; a celebration bridge; a wedding garden to marry off couples; and a secret garden to provide some serenity for visitors and residents looking for peace and quiet.
Westminster is home to one of the largest Vietnamese populations in the U.S.
Developers Bac and Joann Pham’s IP Westminster LLC is developing the property. KTGY Architecture + Planning is serving as the designer.
“Bac and Joann Pham’s vision for this project was to evoke the community spirit of pre-1970 Vietnam,” KTGY principal Ken Ryan, who heads the company's Community Planning and Urban Design Studio, wrote in an email. “They asked us to focus on creating an environment that embraced the elegance and simple joy that occurs with life’s precious moments, celebrations and events. Our job was to organize the uses in a way that creates synergy and offers a variety of experiences to residents and visitors alike.”
The Bolsa Row mixed-use project will feature a 144-room four-star hotel, 37,550 SF of retail, 48K SF of banquet space, a 201-unit apartment and about 700 spots for residential, hotel and visitor parking.
As part of the agreement, the city of Westminster will spend $4.5M in public improvements around the project, according to the staff report.
The city will also provide a tax subsidy — returning 65% of the transient occupancy tax generated by the hotel for 25 years to the developer. City staff estimates the transient occupancy tax rebate to cost about $11.6M.
Bolsa Row will generate $21.5M from sales and the bed tax in 25 years, according to the report. The project will also create about 730 temporary construction jobs and 240 permanent jobs, staff said.
Ryan said he expects the detailed design for Bolsa Row to be finalized in the coming 10 to 12 months. No construction date has been set.
