By Eric Engelbert
One of the most recognizable buildings in Costa Mesa is gone. The ornate former headquarters of Trinity Broadcasting Network at 3150 Bear Street, with its curved golden staircases, marble interiors, and floor-to-ceiling murals of biblical figures, was demolished in 2025 to make way for something the neighborhood has not seen in decades: brand new for-sale homes. National homebuilder Meritage Homes purchased the 6-acre site in November 2025 for $44.5 million and has city approval to build 142 homes, a mix of townhouses and detached single-family residences, on a site tucked between the 73 and 405 freeways just minutes from South Coast Plaza. Demolition is complete. Construction is expected to begin in 2026. Model homes should be ready by 2027. Here is everything buyers need to know.
From Christian Media Empire to Luxury Event Venue to Housing: The Story of 3150 Bear Street
The building at 3150 Bear Street was originally constructed in 1976 for the Full Gospel Businessman's Fellowship International. Trinity Broadcasting Network, the Costa Mesa-based Christian media company founded by Paul and Jan Crouch in 1973, eventually took over the campus and transformed it into their flagship Southern California headquarters. At its peak, the TBN campus included film studios, a broadcast theater, a power building, and extensive grounds, all rendered in an over-the-top palatial style that made the building one of the most distinctive, and to some residents most polarizing, structures in Orange County. Golden staircases, mirrored surfaces, marble floors, and larger-than-life murals of angels and biblical figures covered nearly every surface.
TBN vacated the campus in 2017 following the death of founder Paul Crouch. The building sat largely unused as a series of redevelopment proposals came and went. EF Education First, the international education company, purchased the site at one point for $25.5 million. Irvine-based entrepreneur Manny Khoshbin then acquired the property in 2021 for $22 million and reimagined the grounds as "The Palazzo by Khoshbin," leaning into the building's European-inspired aesthetic and operating it as a luxury event venue for weddings and corporate functions.
The Palazzo phase ended when Meritage Homes acquired the site in November 2025 for $44.5 million, nearly double what Khoshbin paid just four years earlier. Demolition crews moved in and the building came down in 2025. A site that spent nearly five decades as a religious broadcasting campus, and then briefly as an event venue, is now a cleared 6-acre pad in one of the most supply-constrained housing markets in California.
Who Is Meritage Homes?
Meritage Homes (NYSE: MTH) is one of the largest publicly traded homebuilders in the United States. Founded in 1985, the company has delivered more than 180,000 homes across ten states including California, Arizona, Texas, Florida, and the Carolinas. Their Newport Beach office oversees Southern California operations, and the Bear Street project is being developed through their subsidiary MLC Land Holdings Inc.
Meritage is both the developer and the builder on this project. Unlike the large mixed-use projects covered in other recent blogs, where a developer hires separate general contractors and subcontractors for construction, Meritage operates as a vertically integrated homebuilder. They design, build, and sell their own communities. That structure gives buyers a more streamlined purchase experience but also means the project's pace and quality are tied directly to Meritage's own construction teams and standards.
The company has a strong reputation in the energy efficiency space and has received the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year for Sustained Excellence Award every year since 2013. Their Southern California communities operate under an "Everything's Included" model, meaning features like smart home technology, designer-curated interiors, and energy efficiency upgrades are bundled into the base price rather than offered as costly add-ons. For buyers who have purchased new construction before and felt nickel-and-dimed by upgrade packages, that approach is worth noting.
Meritage has other active projects in the region. They recently acquired a site in Santa Ana to build 86 townhomes, and their Cabrilla at Ponte Vista community in the Los Angeles area gives a preview of the product type and community feel they bring to urban infill sites in Southern California.
142 For-Sale Homes: Townhouses, Singles, and 7 Affordable Units
The approved project calls for 122 townhouses and 20 detached single-family homes, totaling 142 residences across the 6-acre site. This is for-sale ownership product, not apartments. In a Costa Mesa market where new for-sale inventory has been extremely limited, that distinction matters significantly for buyers who want to own rather than rent.
Unit sizes span a meaningful range. The smallest homes are two-bedroom, two-bathroom configurations at approximately 1,000 to 1,062 square feet, designed as entry-level ownership opportunities within the community. The largest are four-bedroom, three-bathroom homes reaching up to approximately 2,400 square feet, competing directly with existing single-family resale inventory in the area. The townhouse product is described as four-story stacked flats, while the 20 single-family homes are two-story detached structures.
7 of the 142 homes are designated for very low-income buyers, satisfying the city's affordable housing requirement for the rezoning from commercial to high-density residential. The city council approved that rezoning on August 5, 2025, clearing the final entitlement hurdle and enabling Meritage to close on the purchase three months later.
No official community name or pricing has been released as of this writing. Meritage typically announces pricing closer to the opening of model homes. Given the land cost of $44.5 million across 142 homes, the land component alone works out to approximately $313,000 per home before a single nail is driven. Add construction costs, financing, sales and marketing, and profit margin, and the finished homes will reflect that math in their asking prices.
$22 Million to $44.5 Million in Four Years: What the Land Price Says About Pricing
The chain of ownership at 3150 Bear Street is a useful window into how land values drive new home pricing in Orange County. When Manny Khoshbin acquired the site in 2021 for $22 million, he was buying a unique commercial property with an unusual building and uncertain redevelopment potential. When Meritage paid $44.5 million in 2025, they were paying for entitled residential land with city approval already in hand for 142 homes. The price difference, more than $22 million in four years, reflects the value that entitlements add to raw land in a constrained California market.
At $44.5 million for 6 acres, Meritage paid roughly $7.4 million per acre, or about $313,000 per approved home in land cost alone. That figure provides a floor for thinking about what finished homes at this project will need to sell for. Meritage's typical construction cost for townhome and single-family product in Southern California runs in the range of $200 to $300 per square foot for the structural build, before soft costs, financing, and overhead. A 1,500-square-foot home at those build costs adds another $300,000 to $450,000 on top of the land allocation. By that rough math, entry-level pricing at this project is likely to start in the $700,000 to $900,000 range, with larger four-bedroom homes potentially reaching $1.2 million and above.
Those are estimates based on comparable infill new construction in Costa Mesa and surrounding cities. Meritage sets its own pricing based on market conditions at the time of model home opening, which is currently projected for 2027. By that point, interest rate conditions and the broader Costa Mesa resale market will both influence where they land on pricing.
Demolition, Abatement, and What Happened to the Building
No specific environmental contamination or soil remediation requirements have been disclosed in public filings or media coverage for this site. The project is proceeding as a standard residential infill development on a site that was previously used for commercial and media production purposes.
That said, the building at 3150 Bear Street was constructed in 1976. Commercial structures built before 1980 routinely contain asbestos-containing materials in ceiling tiles, pipe insulation, floor tiles, and roofing, as well as lead-based paint throughout. California law requires a thorough survey and licensed abatement of those materials before demolition can proceed. That work almost certainly occurred before the wrecking crews moved in, though no public disclosure of the scope or cost of that abatement has been reported. The demolition itself was completed in 2025, and the site is now cleared for construction.
The building's demolition was covered by several Christian media publications and drew notable attention from communities with ties to TBN. The structure had a devoted following among people who associated it with decades of religious broadcasting history. Its loss also drew little mourning from others who viewed it as an architectural outlier in an otherwise residential and commercial neighborhood. Whatever one's feelings about the building, it is gone, and the cleared site is now among the most straightforward paths to new homeownership in Costa Mesa in recent memory.
What Bear Street Means for Costa Mesa Buyers
New for-sale homes in Costa Mesa are rare. The city is largely built out, and most of the residential transactions in Costa Mesa involve resale homes ranging from older ranch-style singles to newer condos and townhome communities. A 142-unit new construction community from a national builder on an infill site this close to South Coast Plaza and the 405/73 interchange is not something that comes along often.
For buyers who want the advantages of new construction, including builder warranties, energy-efficient systems, modern layouts, and the ability to customize finishes, this project fills a gap in the Costa Mesa market that has been empty for years. The two-bedroom entry-level units will appeal to first-time buyers and downsizers who want a manageable footprint in a well-located community. The four-bedroom configurations will draw families who want something larger without leaving the city.
The location itself is a strong selling point. Bear Street sits between the 73 Toll Road and the 405 Freeway, giving residents easy access to Newport Beach, Irvine, and the broader South County job market. South Coast Plaza, one of the highest-grossing retail centers in the country, is minutes away. The South Coast Collection (SoCo), the high-end design and dining district on Hyland Avenue, is nearby. And for buyers keeping an eye on the larger development picture in this part of Orange County, One Metro West, the 957-unit mixed-use development at 1683 Sunflower Avenue, is also under way nearby, adding a public park, retail, and significant new rental inventory to the same general corridor.
For buyers currently in the resale market, the Bear Street project is worth tracking as a pricing benchmark. When Meritage opens model homes in 2027, their pricing will signal where the new construction market is landing in Costa Mesa and will influence how sellers and buyers in the surrounding resale market calibrate their expectations.
New Construction in Costa Mesa Is Coming. Be Ready When It Does.
The Bear Street project is the clearest signal in years that institutional homebuilders see Costa Mesa as a market worth paying a premium to enter. A $44.5 million land purchase for 142 homes is not a speculative bet. It is a calculated commitment from one of the country's largest publicly traded builders. If you are a buyer who wants to be positioned in Costa Mesa before new construction pricing sets a new benchmark, now is the time to understand what existing inventory looks like and where your budget puts you.
