Posted July 2026 | By Eric Engelbert
Two Major Apartment Projects Are Reshaping the Bristol Street Corridor
The stretch of Bristol Street near John Wayne Airport is quietly becoming one of the most active apartment development corridors in Newport Beach. The Picerne Group, a Newport Beach-based developer with decades of history in Southern California, has two large residential projects approved and moving forward in this area. Together, the two projects represent more than 540 new apartments on land that previously held aging office buildings.
For anyone watching the Newport Beach rental market, or thinking about investing in the area, these projects are worth understanding. They signal a broader shift in how Newport Beach is approaching the office-to-residential conversion trend that is playing out across Orange County.
The Two Bristol Street Projects: What We Know
Both projects sit on the Bristol Street North corridor and were approved by the Newport Beach City Council over the objection of the Orange County Airport Land Use Commission, which cited aircraft noise concerns. The City Council voted to override that determination, noting that Newport Beach has a state-mandated housing goal and that the office market in the area had softened significantly.
| Detail | 1300 Bristol Street North | 1400 Bristol Street |
|---|---|---|
| Units | 312 apartments | 229 apartments |
| Affordable | Included | 23 units |
| Former Use | Two-story office park (33,292 SF) | Office building (29,400 SF) |
| Site Size | 1.97 acres | Adjacent parcel |
| Approved | 2023 | May 2024 |
| Connection | Pedestrian bridge linking both buildings | |
The two projects will be connected by a pedestrian bridge, effectively creating a single large residential campus along Bristol Street North. Parking for the 1400 Bristol project includes a 422-car garage. The 1300 Bristol building is a 6-story podium design with parking below the residential floors.
About the Picerne Group
The Picerne Group was founded in 1988 by Kenneth Picerne and is headquartered in Newport Beach at 5000 Birch Street. The firm manages the full development lifecycle in-house, from entitlement and construction to property management, and states its intention to hold its communities long-term rather than build and sell. With more than 40,000 multifamily units in its portfolio and over 2 million square feet of retail and office holdings, Picerne is one of the larger privately held apartment operators in the western United States.
Their existing Newport Beach project gives you a sense of what they build. One Uptown Newport on Jamboree Road is a 462-unit luxury apartment community that opened in December 2019, developed as Phase I of the larger 25-acre Uptown Newport master plan in partnership with Shopoff Realty Investments. The community includes 92 affordable units and was the first major residential project to deliver in the Uptown Newport district.
Picerne's broader Southern California portfolio includes Blu in Laguna Niguel, Eleven10 in Orange, Aria in Cerritos, Kaia in Lomita, and Vistara in Ontario, along with communities in Las Vegas and Henderson, Nevada. Their in-house construction arm, Picerne Construction Company, builds the projects directly.
More in the Newport Beach Pipeline
Beyond the two Bristol Street projects, Picerne also has an approved project at 4400 Von Karman Avenue in the Koll Center Newport business park, near the intersection of Birch Street and Von Karman. That project, the Residences at 4400 Von Karman, is 312 units and includes a new parking structure and a 1.1-acre public park. It took years to move through approvals and litigation before a court cleared the way for construction in 2022.
When complete, Picerne's Newport Beach projects along Bristol Street and Von Karman will represent one of the largest concentrated additions of new apartment inventory the city has seen in decades. The airport area of Newport Beach is zoned for up to 2,200 housing units as part of a 2006 general plan decision, and these three projects alone account for roughly 850 of those.
Newport Beach's city leaders have publicly acknowledged the pressure the state has put on local governments to hit housing production targets. Picerne's projects are well-positioned relative to that mandate, which gives them a degree of political durability that infill projects in other parts of the city might not have.
What This Means for Newport Beach Renters and Investors
Newport Beach has historically had very limited new apartment inventory. The city's high land costs, slow entitlement process, and strong homeowner opposition to density have kept rental supply tight for years. These Bristol Street projects represent a meaningful increase in available units in an area that is already attractive to renters: close to John Wayne Airport, walkable to employment in the Koll Center and surrounding office parks, and a short drive to Fashion Island and the beach.
For investors watching the rental market, the addition of over 500 units in this corridor is worth tracking. New luxury inventory at this scale can shift rent comparables in the surrounding area, at least in the short term, as lease-up absorption pulls renters who might otherwise have looked at older stock. Over time, strong employment demand in the airport submarket has historically supported rental rates well.
For prospective renters, these projects will add options at the higher end of the Newport Beach market when they deliver. We will update this page as construction timelines become clearer.
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