Posted August 2026 | By Eric Engelbert | Updated as the project progresses.
120 Apartments at the Brea Plaza Shopping Center: A Freeway-Adjacent Infill Project Approved in April 2025
The Brea City Council approved Brea Plaza Living in April 2025, adding 120 rental apartments to the Brea Plaza shopping center site near the intersection of the 57 Freeway and Imperial Highway. The project places a four-story residential building on top of a two-story parking structure, reaching a total height of 64 feet and requiring a minor variance of four feet above the city's standard height limit for the area. The approval passed with a parking reduction agreement that allows the project to share the shopping center's existing surface lot rather than providing all of its required parking on-site.
Brea Plaza Living is a straightforward urban infill project: a mid-size apartment building on underutilized shopping center land, near a freeway interchange, with a modest affordable component and design by a local architecture firm. It is not the most prominent development in Brea's current pipeline, but it adds 120 units toward the city's 6th Cycle RHNA obligation of 2,365 units and provides a rental option in a freeway-accessible location that currently has no new construction apartment inventory. For the right renter, the combination of freeway proximity, shopping center convenience, and Brea's school district is a straightforward value proposition.
This post covers what was approved, where it sits in Brea's broader development pipeline, and what the project means for renters and the local market. For the full Brea development picture, see the Brea development overview.
The Project: Four Stories of Apartments Over a Two-Story Parking Garage
Brea Plaza Living is designed by Architects of Orange, an Orange County-based firm with a track record on infill residential and mixed-use projects across the region. The building sits on a portion of the Brea Plaza shopping center property, with the residential floors beginning above a two-story structured parking garage. The total height of 64 feet puts the building one floor above what a conventional four-story residential building at a standard 15-foot floor-to-floor height would reach, with the parking podium accounting for the additional elevation above ground.
The parking arrangement was one of the approval conditions that required negotiation. The project received a parking reduction agreement, allowing it to count shared parking in the Brea Plaza surface lot toward its residential parking requirement. Shared parking agreements at shopping centers are a common mechanism for urban infill residential projects in California: shopping centers have excess parking capacity during evenings and weekends when residents are most likely to be home, while residents are most likely to be away during daytime retail hours. When structured correctly, a shared arrangement allows a residential building to operate with fewer dedicated spaces than it would otherwise require without creating an actual shortage for either use.
Above 2-story parking
64 feet total height
120 units
114 market rate
City inclusionary
requirement met
Plus shared surface lot
Parking reduction
agreement approved
Near 57 Freeway
Imperial Highway
Brea 92821
| Project Name | Brea Plaza Living |
|---|---|
| Location | Brea Plaza shopping center, near 57 Freeway and Imperial Highway, Brea |
| Architect | Architects of Orange |
| Total Units | 120 apartments (6 extremely low-income, 114 market rate) |
| Building Configuration | 4-story residential above 2-story parking structure |
| Height | 64 feet (minor variance of 4 feet above standard approved) |
| Parking | Structured garage plus shared surface parking agreement |
| City Council Approval | April 2025 |
| RHNA Contribution | 120 units toward Brea's 2,365-unit 6th Cycle obligation |
| Project Status | Approved; construction timeline to be confirmed |
The Height Variance and Parking Reduction: How the Entitlements Came Together
Two approval conditions made Brea Plaza Living slightly more complex than a standard by-right project: the minor height variance and the parking reduction agreement. Neither is unusual for urban infill residential development in California, but both required the city to exercise discretion rather than applying standard zoning mechanically.
The height variance of four feet reflects the geometry of stacking a residential building on top of a parking podium. A two-story parking structure typically reaches 20 to 22 feet before the first residential floor begins. Adding four floors of residential above that, at standard floor-to-floor heights, produces a total building height that can exceed the local zoning ceiling by a small margin even when the residential portion itself is not unusually tall. The city approved the variance on the basis that the additional height does not materially affect surrounding properties, that the overall massing of the building is consistent with the scale of development appropriate for a freeway-adjacent commercial site, and that the benefit of adding 120 units to the housing supply justifies the minor departure from the standard limit.
The affordable component, six units reserved for extremely low-income households, satisfies the city's inclusionary housing requirement for projects of this size. Extremely low-income in Orange County means households earning up to 30 percent of the Area Median Income, which as of recent HUD calculations for a family of four falls below approximately $38,000 annually. Six units at this income level in a new construction building is a meaningful contribution to the most constrained segment of Brea's rental market, where essentially no new supply has been added in years.
The Location: What the 57 Freeway and Imperial Highway Address Means for Renters
Brea Plaza Living's location near the 57 Freeway interchange at Imperial Highway places it at one of the most accessible points in the city for commuters. The 57 connects north to the Pomona Freeway and south through Anaheim to the 91 and 5 corridors, giving residents direct access to employment centers across Orange County and into Los Angeles County without navigating surface streets to reach the freeway. For renters who commute to Anaheim, Fullerton, Diamond Bar, or downtown Los Angeles, the freeway adjacency is a practical advantage that a Brea address in a less accessible location cannot replicate.
The Brea Plaza shopping center context provides residents with day-to-day retail convenience at ground level. Grocery, pharmacy, and service retail within the center are walkable from the building's entrance, which reduces the car-dependency that typically characterizes new apartment living in suburban Orange County. This is not a walkable neighborhood in the way that a transit-oriented development in an urban core would be, but it is a more convenient daily living environment than a freestanding apartment complex on a residential street removed from commercial services.
The trade-off is freeway noise and the industrial character of the immediate surroundings. An apartment building adjacent to a shopping center parking lot and near a freeway interchange is not a quiet residential environment. Renters who prioritize peace and quiet, proximity to parks, or neighborhood character will find more of what they are looking for in Brea's established residential areas or in the Brea 265 community as it develops on the hillside. Brea Plaza Living is for the renter who values access and convenience over those amenities and who sees Brea's school district, relative affordability compared to coastal alternatives, and freeway connectivity as the primary draws.
Where Brea Plaza Living Fits in Brea's Development Pipeline
Brea Plaza Living is the most straightforward of the four developments currently moving through Brea's pipeline. The Brea Mall project is a $1.5 billion national retail reinvention strategy. Brea 265 is a 265-acre oil field conversion that will take a decade to build out. The Village at Greenbriar is a Lennar single-family subdivision. Brea Plaza Living is a 120-unit apartment building at a shopping center: a well-understood product type, a familiar location for anyone who shops at Brea Plaza, and a development that delivers units on a more predictable timeline than the larger and more complex projects in the pipeline.
That relative simplicity is an asset for the city's RHNA accounting. Projects that move quickly from approval to construction to certificate of occupancy count toward RHNA sooner and help the city demonstrate compliance progress to HCD. A 120-unit project on a shopping center site with existing infrastructure, approved entitlements, and a straightforward construction type can reasonably move from groundbreaking to first occupancy in 18 to 24 months from the start of construction. That timeline compares favorably to the multi-year buildout horizon of both the Brea Mall residential project and Brea 265.
For renters watching Brea's apartment market, Brea Plaza Living represents one of the nearer-term opportunities for new construction in the city, along with the Brea Mall apartments. Both projects target the market-rate renter who wants a new building in Brea but is not looking for a for-sale townhome or single-family home. The two projects are in different parts of the city and serve slightly different renter profiles: the mall project targets lifestyle-oriented renters who will pay a premium for the Din Tai Fung and Life Time adjacency, while Brea Plaza Living targets the commuter-focused renter for whom the 57 Freeway on-ramp is the primary amenity.
Interested in Brea Apartments or New Construction?
We track Brea Plaza Living and the rest of Brea's development pipeline alongside the broader North OC rental and for-sale market. If you are looking for a new apartment in Brea or want to know when Brea Plaza Living breaks ground and begins leasing, contact us and we will keep you updated as the project progresses.
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