By Eric Engelbert
Laguna Niguel City Center: How a Former Courthouse Became the City's First Downtown
Laguna Niguel is the 16th-largest city in Orange County with approximately 65,000 residents, rolling hills, award-winning parks, and some of the most desirable zip codes in South OC. It incorporated as a city in 1989. For its entire existence as an independent city, it has had no downtown. No central walkable district, no civic plaza, no place where residents naturally gather the way they do in San Clemente's Pier Bowl or Dana Point's Lantern District. That is about to change.
On 24 county-owned acres adjacent to City Hall at Crown Valley Parkway and Alicia Parkway, a $260 million mixed-use development is in the final pre-construction phase. The project, called Laguna Niguel City Center, will deliver 275 apartment homes, nearly 111,000 square feet of retail, restaurants, wellness, and office space, a new 16,250-square-foot public library, and a network of walkable paseos and plazas built around a landscaped central gathering space. Groundbreaking is targeted for Summer 2026, with construction expected to begin in earnest in the latter part of the year.
The full story of how a shuttered courthouse, a failed arts district concept, a pandemic, and a state housing mandate all converged to produce this project tells you a great deal about how development actually works in South Orange County today.
The Land: A Courthouse, a Maintenance Yard, and 24 Acres of County Property
The site that will become Laguna Niguel City Center was never a blank canvas. The 24 acres were assembled over time from several distinct county uses, all on land that the County of Orange owns outright. The anchor of the site was the South County Justice Center, a branch courthouse that closed in 2008 as part of court consolidations. After closure it sat vacant. The remaining parcels on the site included an Orange County public library branch, a county maintenance yard, an Orange County Fire Authority station, and undeveloped land.
Because the county owns the land, there was no traditional land acquisition. The project is not a land sale. It is a public-private partnership built around an 89-year ground lease, the same basic structure that the county used for the Dana Point Harbor revitalization. The county retains ownership of every acre and every building that gets built on it. The private developers invest their own capital, build the project, and pay rent to the county for the right to operate it over the lease term. No taxpayer money funds the construction. When the lease eventually expires, everything goes back to the county.
The 89-year lease term is structured to generate $452 million in total payments to the county, with approximately $185 million from the commercial component and $266.6 million from the residential apartments. For the first 10 years of the lease, the annual payment to the county totals $5.2 million, with the amount rising as the project matures and generates more revenue over time.
Seven Years in the Making: The Long Road to Groundbreaking
The Laguna Niguel City Center project has been in development in one form or another for over a decade. Understanding the history of how it evolved explains both why it took so long and why the version being built today looks significantly different from what was originally envisioned.
2015: The Agora Arts District That Never Was
The first serious attempt to develop the courthouse site came in 2015, when the city and county announced a partnership with Shaheen Sadeghi, the founder of LAB Holding LLC in Costa Mesa and the creative force behind The Camp and The Lab, two influential alternative retail concepts in South Coast Metro. Sadeghi's vision for the Laguna Niguel site was the Agora Arts District, a $150 million development built around a food hall and artisan market concept, drawing on the same experiential retail philosophy that made The Camp and The Lab successful. The plan was celebrated locally as exactly the kind of authentic, character-driven development the site deserved. It never moved forward. The partnership ended in 2017 without breaking ground.
2019: Burnham-Ward and Sares Regis Enter the Picture
In June 2019, the county announced a new development partnership for the site. Burnham-Ward Properties of Newport Beach and Sares Regis Group of Irvine were selected to develop the project together under the entity name Laguna Niguel Town Center Partners LLC. Burnham-Ward, led by CEO Scott Burnham and President Bryon Ward, would handle the commercial and retail component. Sares Regis, a major Southern California residential and commercial developer, would handle the 275 apartments. The project was approved in 2019 at a cost of $200 to $220 million with a construction start date targeted for 2023.
The original plan called for 158,600 square feet of commercial space, with a significant office component of 77,100 square feet, retail, and a parking structure to serve the office workers. Entitlements were received and the EIR was certified by the City Council on June 21, 2022. Then the pandemic arrived and rewrote the assumptions on which the project was built.
2026: The Pandemic Pivot and the Revised Plan
The collapse of office demand after the pandemic fundamentally changed what was financially viable at the site. By 2025 it was clear that the 77,100 square feet of office space in the original plan was no longer financeable. Remote work had depressed office rents, demand had shifted, and lenders had pulled back from new office construction across Southern California. The developers went back to the county with a revised proposal: cut office space by 81 percent, from 77,100 square feet down to just 15,000 square feet, eliminate the parking structure that had been designed primarily to serve office tenants, increase retail from 77,100 to 95,708 square feet, and expand the library from its originally planned footprint to 16,250 square feet.
In December 2025, the Orange County Board of Supervisors approved the revised plan. The updated project costs $260 million, more than the original estimate despite the reduced scope, reflecting the significant inflation and construction cost escalation of the past several years. Of that total, $15 million is specifically allocated for construction of the new county library. Board of Supervisors Vice Chair Katrina Foley, who has overseen both this project and the Dana Point Harbor revitalization, called the update a project that keeps the development "financially stable and on track for late 2026."
The Developers: Who Is Building Laguna Niguel's Downtown
Burnham-Ward Properties (Commercial Component)
Burnham-Ward Properties is a Newport Beach-based commercial real estate developer with a portfolio built around experiential retail and mixed-use destinations in Southern California. Their flagship project is SOCO, the South Coast Collection in Costa Mesa, a curated retail and design district that helped establish that format in Orange County. Other Burnham-Ward projects include Castaway Commons in Newport Beach and the revamped Gateway in Mission Viejo. They are also the lead commercial developer at the Dana Point Harbor revitalization, where they are building the 12 new waterfront buildings in the reconstructed Mariner's Village. Scott Burnham serves as CEO and Bryon Ward as President. Burnham-Ward's track record in South OC commercial development made them the natural partner for the county on a project that requires both credibility with retailers and experience delivering mixed-use environments from the ground up.
Sares Regis Group (Residential Component)
Sares Regis Group is an Irvine-based real estate developer and operator with decades of experience across residential and commercial projects throughout California and the Western United States. The firm manages more than 25,000 apartment homes nationally. Their role in Laguna Niguel City Center is the 275-unit residential component, planned as two separate apartment buildings on the site: one 200-unit building and one 75-unit building, both designed with what the developers describe as resort-like amenities. Sares Regis brings the institutional residential development expertise and the balance sheet to finance and operate the apartment buildings across the life of the ground lease.
What Is Being Built: The Project in Detail
The revised Laguna Niguel City Center plan delivers a genuinely mixed-use environment across 24 acres. The commercial component will total approximately 110,708 square feet organized across multiple buildings surrounding a central landscaped plaza, with paseos connecting the retail streets, outdoor seating areas, and programmable event space. The retail and restaurant focus has been increased from the original plan, replacing the office-heavy original mix with a destination more oriented toward food, wellness, and community programming.
The new Orange County public library within the project is a meaningful civic anchor. At 16,250 square feet, it is approximately 60 percent larger than originally planned and represents a real investment in community infrastructure alongside the private development. Having the library integrated into a walkable mixed-use district rather than an isolated county campus changes its relationship to the community around it.
The two apartment buildings will bring 275 homes to the site, with resort-style amenities to be consistent with the price expectations of the Laguna Niguel market. These are rental apartments, not for-sale condominiums. No pricing has been announced. Given Laguna Niguel's overall market, apartments of this caliber adjacent to retail, a library, and open space will likely position at the upper end of the South OC apartment market.
The decision to eliminate the parking structure from the revised plan was driven by both cost and circulation. Without a large office component generating daily commuter demand, surface parking can accommodate the retail and residential uses more efficiently. The board filings noted that eliminating the garage "brings down costs materially and improves the financial viability of the project, while also enhancing the project's site circulation and parking layout by providing more convenient parking for the new library."
The Housing Element Mandate: 1,207 Units Required, and How the City Plans to Get There
The 275 apartments in Laguna Niguel City Center are not just a market-rate housing development. They are a meaningful piece of the city's obligation under the state's Regional Housing Needs Assessment process, and understanding that context helps explain why this project has the support it does from both the city and the county.
California's 6th Cycle RHNA, covering the planning period from 2021 to 2029, assigned Laguna Niguel a mandate to plan and zone for 1,207 new housing units. That number is broken down across income categories, with a requirement that a significant share accommodate very low and low-income households, not just market-rate development. The state does not require the city to build those homes itself, but it does require that the city demonstrate sites exist where developers can build them, and that those sites are appropriately zoned.
The California Department of Housing and Community Development certified Laguna Niguel's housing element in February 2024, but only conditionally, requiring the city to complete rezoning of certain identified sites by June 30, 2024. As of March 2025, HCD was actively inquiring about whether the city had met that deadline, raising questions about continued compliance. Cities that fall out of housing element compliance face the Builder's Remedy, a state law that allows developers to bypass local zoning on projects with affordable components. For a community like Laguna Niguel that has carefully managed its suburban character since incorporation, that is a significant vulnerability.
The Projects on the Books: 321 Units Down, 886 to Go
As of mid-2026, the city has three concrete residential projects working toward the 1,207-unit mandate. The City Center's 275 apartments are the largest piece. The Cove at El Niguel, a 22-unit development of duplex and triplex homes on Crown Valley Parkway by Laguna Niguel Properties Inc., was approved in 2022 and is currently under construction. Paseo de Colinas, a 24-unit for-sale townhome project with 2 to 4 bedrooms and 2-car garages, received unanimous Planning Commission approval in February 2025 and is moving toward construction. Together those three projects total 321 units, roughly 27 percent of the mandate. The remaining 886 units have no announced projects behind them yet.
The Gateway Specific Plan: Where the Remaining Units Are Supposed to Come From
The most important piece of Laguna Niguel's long-term housing strategy is the Gateway Specific Plan, a 315-acre area along Crown Valley Parkway bounded by Interstate 5 and the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor. The city adopted a comprehensive update to this plan in 2011 that allows for up to 2,994 residential units and 2.26 million square feet of retail, office, and other commercial uses. The plan was designed to guide the Gateway area toward a more transit and pedestrian-oriented urban village as commercial properties along the corridor redevelop over time. In late 2024 the city added an inclusionary housing requirement for Gateway projects exceeding 50 units per acre, requiring either 5 percent very-low-income or 10 percent low-income units.
The Gateway framework gives the city the zoning capacity to accommodate the remaining RHNA balance several times over. The problem is that zoning capacity and actual development are not the same thing. The Gateway area is primarily established commercial along a suburban arterial, and the pace at which individual property owners and developers propose, entitle, and build residential projects on those sites is not something the city controls. As of mid-2026, no large Gateway residential projects have been announced or approved to fill the gap between the 321 units already in the pipeline and the 1,207-unit mandate.
ADUs and the Compliance Clock
Accessory dwelling units represent the third leg of the city's housing strategy. Laguna Niguel updated its ADU ordinance in early 2025 to align with the latest state mandates and offers a pre-approved ADU plan program to streamline construction for homeowners. The city also operates a loan program offering eligible homeowners up to $100,000 at 0 to 3 percent interest to build an ADU, on the condition it is rented to a very-low-income tenant for 10 years. ADUs count toward RHNA and can add meaningful numbers over an eight-year planning period, but they depend on individual homeowner decisions and cannot be projected reliably.
The compliance clock is running. The 2021-2029 planning period ends in three years, and with 886 units unaccounted for in announced projects, the realistic path to 1,207 runs through the Gateway Specific Plan corridor. Whether private developers move fast enough, at sufficient density, to close that gap before HCD concludes the city has not met its commitment is the open question that sits behind every housing conversation in Laguna Niguel right now.
A Realtor's Perspective: What Laguna Niguel City Center Means for the Surrounding Market
Laguna Niguel has always commanded a premium over comparable inland South OC communities. The schools are excellent, the parks are well maintained, the crime rate is low, and the location is central to both the 5 and 73 corridors. What it has never had is a walkable civic center that creates the kind of place-identity that some buyers specifically look for when choosing a community over another one with similar specs.
The City Center project changes that. When a $260 million mixed-use development with restaurants, retail, a library, and 275 apartments is built on 24 acres adjacent to City Hall, it creates an address within Laguna Niguel that did not previously exist. Properties within walking distance of Crown Valley Parkway and Alicia Parkway will be able to reference walkable retail and dining in a way that no Laguna Niguel neighborhood currently can. That access has a measurable value in markets where it exists, and it will have value here once it is built.
The construction period is a near-term friction point for properties immediately adjacent to the site. Noise, truck traffic, and the visual disruption of a major construction project through 2027 or 2028 will affect daily life on the streets closest to the development. For buyers with a longer horizon, buying near the site today means accepting that disruption in exchange for being positioned ahead of the transformation. For sellers currently near the site, that context affects how to price and how to communicate the value proposition to buyers.
The 275 rental apartments deserve specific attention. A large market-rate apartment complex near Crown Valley and Alicia will bring new residents to the surrounding area, and the retail component will generate additional foot traffic and commercial activity. That is a net positive for the overall commercial vitality of that part of Laguna Niguel. The near-term concern for some existing homeowners near the site will be density and traffic. The longer-term reality is that a well-executed mixed-use development with Burnham-Ward's track record tends to become an amenity rather than a burden once it is complete.
Key Numbers: Laguna Niguel City Center
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Total project cost | $260 million |
| Site size | 24 acres (county-owned) |
| Location | Crown Valley Pkwy and Alicia Pkwy, adj. City Hall |
| Residential units | 275 apartments (200-unit + 75-unit buildings) |
| Commercial space | 110,708 SF (retail, restaurant, wellness, office) |
| Office space (revised) | 15,000 SF (down 81% from original plan) |
| Retail/restaurant (revised) | 95,708 SF (increased from original) |
| New public library | 16,250 SF ($15M county investment) |
| Ground lease term | 89 years |
| Total lease payments to county | ~$452 million over 89 years |
| Annual lease payment (first 10 years) | $5.2 million/year |
| Commercial developer | Burnham-Ward Properties (Newport Beach) |
| Residential developer | Sares Regis Group (Irvine) |
| Revised plan approved | December 2025 (OC Board of Supervisors) |
| Groundbreaking target | Summer / late 2026 |
| Laguna Niguel RHNA mandate | 1,207 units (2021-2029) |
| City Center (under construction 2026) | 275 units |
| The Cove at El Niguel (under construction) | 22 units |
| Paseo de Colinas Townhomes (approved Feb 2025) | 24 units |
| Total in announced pipeline | 321 units (27% of mandate) |
| Units still needed (no announced projects) | 886 units — Gateway corridor is primary path |
Interested in Laguna Niguel homes near the new City Center corridor? Contact Eric Engelbert for current inventory, pricing trends, and off-market opportunities in Laguna Niguel.
