By Eric Engelbert
One of Orange County's most recognizable but quietly declining retail sites is about to disappear. The South Coast Plaza Village, the 1973-era open-air mall on Sunflower Avenue just south of the 405 Freeway, is being demolished and replaced by an entirely new urban neighborhood. The project, called The Village Santa Ana, will bring 1,583 homes, 300,000 square feet of office space, 80,000 square feet of retail and dining, and nearly 14 acres of open space to a 17-acre site that has sat in slow decline for years. Buildings will rise up to 25 stories. The Santa Ana City Council approved the project unanimously, 7 to 0, on September 16, 2025. Construction was projected to begin in January 2026. Here is everything buyers, renters, and anyone living in the South Coast corridor needs to know.
What Is There Now: A Mall That Never Quite Found Its Footing
South Coast Plaza Village opened in 1973 on the southwest corner of Bristol Street and Sunflower Avenue in Santa Ana, situated directly across Sunflower from its much more famous sibling, South Coast Plaza. The two malls were developed by the same family, the Segerstroms, but South Coast Plaza evolved into one of the highest-grossing retail centers in the country, while South Coast Plaza Village followed a different and quieter trajectory. Today the 164,000-square-foot center operates with fewer tenants and noticeably less traffic than it did in its peak years.
The names that remain are notable in their own right. Morton's The Steakhouse and Darya Fine Persian Cuisine are anchors with loyal clientele. Grace Tailoring, a small alterations business owned by Rick Kim's family, has been operating at the center for 14 years. The Regency Theatres location, which sat on the only parcel of the property located across Plaza Drive from the main mall footprint, closed in February 2025, becoming the first visible sign that redevelopment was imminent.
Management has communicated with the remaining tenants. Rick Kim told the OC Register that South Coast Plaza representatives have assured his family they will help find a new space when the time comes. His quote captures the situation well: "We're not worried. Our hope is we can stay close and secure a space that's walking distance within the plaza." The Segerstrom family has deep roots in this community, and their handling of the tenant transition will likely reflect that. No formal relocation commitments have been made public.
The Developers: A Century-Old OC Family and a Global Real Estate Firm
The land is owned by C.J. Segerstrom and Sons, the family development company that has been building Orange County since 1898. The Segerstroms are not an outside investor swooping in to extract value from a site. They are one of the foundational forces that built South County. They developed South Coast Plaza, the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, and much of the commercial fabric around Costa Mesa and Santa Ana. With the land already in family ownership, there is no acquisition cost in this deal, which significantly changes the financial equation and gives the project unusual long-term flexibility.
The operating development partner is Hines, a Houston-based real estate investment firm with a Newport Beach office and a substantial footprint in Orange County. Hines is one of the largest privately owned real estate firms in the world, with projects in more than 30 countries. Locally, their work includes 2211 Michelson in Irvine, a Class A office tower near John Wayne Airport; 1750 East Fourth Street in Santa Ana, a residential development a few blocks north of the project site; The Volt Campus in Orange, an adaptive reuse creative office project; and Ball Road Business Park in Anaheim. Hines has the institutional capacity to finance and execute a 20-year, multi-phase project of this scale. The combination of Segerstrom's land ownership and Hines's development muscle is an unusually strong partnership for a project of this complexity.
The design team is equally credentialed. Gensler is the lead architect. Gensler is one of the largest and most recognized architecture firms in the world, with extensive mixed-use and urban design experience across California. RIOS is handling landscape architecture and urban design. RIOS has a reputation for ambitious public realm work, and the 13.8 acres of open space planned for this project, 7.5 acres of which will be publicly accessible, will be one of the most significant tests of their approach in Orange County.
1,583 Homes, Towers Up to 25 Stories, and 14 Acres of Open Space
The Village Santa Ana will be built in five phases over approximately 20 years. The full buildout includes 1,583 residential units, 300,000 square feet of office space, 80,000 square feet of retail and dining, 13.8 acres of open space, and 3,439 parking spaces. Buildings range from low-rise street-level retail up to towers reaching 25 stories, making this the tallest residential development proposed in Santa Ana's recent history.
Phase 1, the first portion to break ground, targets 360 residential units, 73,175 square feet of commercial space, and 3.1 acres of open space. Phase 1 is the foundation of the project's public realm and will set the architectural and community tone for everything that follows. Each subsequent phase adds residential density, office square footage, and park area, building toward the full neighborhood vision over the next two decades.
There are no on-site affordable units. Instead, the developer agreed to pay $7.1 million in affordable housing in-lieu fees to the city, which can deploy those funds toward affordable housing elsewhere in Santa Ana. The project also includes a $9.3 million community benefits package, paid in four installments as each phase is completed, with the city council directing how those funds are allocated. Development fees total approximately $6 million.
One notable concession made during the approval process: the original specific plan included hotel use. After opposition from Unite Here Local 11, the hotel workers union, the developer agreed to remove the hotel entitlement. A conditional use permit would now be required if Hines ever wanted to revisit that component in the future.
Unanimous Approval, a 10x Tax Revenue Jump, and What the $1.9 Billion Figure Actually Means
The Santa Ana City Council voted 7 to 0 to approve The Village Santa Ana on September 16, 2025. That unanimity is significant. It reflects both the strength of the project's community benefits package and the city's urgent fiscal reality. Santa Ana currently collects just over $500,000 per year in tax revenue from the South Coast Plaza Village site. Once The Village Santa Ana is fully built out, that figure is projected to reach $5.5 million per year, nearly ten times the current amount. The city is also facing a projected $30 million budget deficit beginning around 2029, when its Measure X sales tax measure sunsets. A project that nearly decuples tax revenue from one site, while adding 9,000 jobs (approximately 1,000 of them recurring), is difficult to vote against in that environment.
You may have seen this described as a "$1.9 billion project." That number requires some explanation. The development will encompass approximately 1.9 million square feet of new construction across all five phases. The figure sometimes cited as "$1.9 billion" appears to conflate the square footage with a dollar value. No publicly disclosed construction budget of $1.9 billion has been confirmed by the developers or the city. The OC Business Journal estimated the finished project's total value could approach $1.5 billion. A final development cost over 20 years in that range, or potentially higher given inflation and financing costs, is plausible for a project of this scope in coastal Southern California. But because the Segerstrom family owns the land outright, there is no land acquisition cost factored into the equation, which is a meaningful difference from most large-scale developments.
Construction was projected to begin in January 2026. As of this writing, no formal groundbreaking ceremony has been announced publicly, though the timeline implies Phase 1 site work should be underway or imminent.
A Neighborhood in Transition: Gentrification, Related Bristol, and What It Means for Santa Ana
It is impossible to discuss The Village Santa Ana honestly without acknowledging the broader context. Santa Ana is a majority-Latino, working-class city. It is also one of the most densely populated cities in California, with a chronic shortage of housing at prices its residents can actually afford. The Village Santa Ana adds 1,583 homes with zero on-site affordable units. The developer pays $7.1 million into an affordable housing fund instead. Whether that tradeoff serves Santa Ana's existing residents or accelerates displacement depends heavily on where and how those funds are deployed, and on what rents or sale prices the new units ultimately command.
The Village Santa Ana is also not the only large-scale redevelopment happening in this corridor. Just to the east, Related Bristol, a joint venture between Related California and Bristol Street property owners, received approval in 2024 to redevelop the Metro Town Square Mall site into 3,750 homes across 42 acres, with a reported project value of $2.9 billion. Together, the Village Santa Ana and Related Bristol projects could add more than 5,000 new homes to a single stretch of Bristol and Sunflower over the next 20 years, fundamentally reshaping the character of that corridor.
The 9,000 jobs projected for The Village Santa Ana, with 1,000 recurring positions, offer a counterpoint. Construction employment, office tenants, and ground-floor retail jobs can benefit existing Santa Ana residents if training and hiring programs are structured intentionally. The $9.3 million community benefits package is meant to fund exactly those kinds of initiatives, but the specifics of how the council allocates those funds will matter more than the dollar figure alone.
Who Will Live There and What Will It Cost?
No pricing has been released. The project has not confirmed whether the residential units will be for-sale condominiums, rental apartments, or a combination. Given Hines's track record on comparable projects and the 20-year development horizon, the most likely scenario is rental apartments in the early phases, with potential for-sale product as later phases are designed closer to their construction dates.
What the project's positioning signals is a premium product. Gensler-designed buildings up to 25 stories, 7.5 acres of public open space, 80,000 square feet of ground-floor retail and dining, and a site adjacent to South Coast Plaza and the Segerstrom Center for the Arts are not the components of a workforce housing project. Current market averages for Santa Ana rentals run approximately $2,000 to $2,400 for a one-bedroom and $2,600 to $3,100 for a two-bedroom, depending on building quality and location. A luxury Hines product in this location, when Phase 1 units eventually come to market, would likely price above current Santa Ana averages and closer to the Irvine or Costa Mesa luxury tier, potentially $2,800 to $3,500 for a one-bedroom and $3,500 and up for a two-bedroom.
For buyers watching this corridor, the transformative scale of these projects (Village Santa Ana plus Related Bristol) is a signal worth tracking. Long-term, the addition of tens of thousands of square feet of office, curated retail, and well-designed open space to a site adjacent to two of OC's most significant cultural and retail anchors tends to lift the desirability of surrounding neighborhoods. For buyers considering Santa Ana or the South Coast area now, that trajectory is part of the value calculus.
What This Means for South Coast Area Buyers and Renters Right Now
Projects like The Village Santa Ana take decades to fully realize. Phase 1 is just beginning, and the final tower will not top out for 20 years. That time horizon matters for how you weigh the development's impact on your decisions today.
For renters in Santa Ana and the surrounding area, the near-term effect of a project this size is minimal. The new units are years away from lease-up. What the project signals is that institutional capital and top-tier development talent view this corridor as a long-term bet, which is a meaningful endorsement of the area's trajectory. For renters who want to get ahead of that trajectory, now is a reasonable time to be looking at buying in Santa Ana before Phase 1 delivers and attention shifts toward the neighborhood.
For buyers, the current market in Santa Ana offers more negotiating room than it has in several years. Homes are sitting longer across Orange County, and sellers in the $600,000 to $900,000 range are more willing to negotiate on price and terms than they were in 2021 and 2022. Buying into a neighborhood with a 20-year institutional redevelopment story already approved and funded is a different proposition from speculating on an uncertain future. The story here is not speculation. It is already approved, already breaking ground, and already backed by one of the most capable development teams in the region.
What Nearby Homeowners Should Expect: Construction Traffic, Timelines, and Long-Term Value
If you own a home within a mile or two of the Sunflower and Bristol corridor, The Village Santa Ana is not an abstraction. It is a 20-year construction project that will have real and immediate effects on your daily life before it delivers any of its long-term benefits.
The honest reality is that construction traffic will be significant and sustained. Phase 1 alone involves site demolition, foundation work for mid-rise buildings, underground parking, and utility relocation on a 17-acre footprint. Sunflower Avenue, Bristol Street, and the surrounding surface streets will see elevated truck traffic, temporary lane closures, and increased congestion during construction hours. And The Village Santa Ana is not the only project under way in this corridor. The Related Bristol project, which will redevelop the Metro Town Square Mall site into 3,750 homes across 42 acres just to the east, received approval in 2024 and is moving toward its own groundbreaking. When both projects are simultaneously in construction, the cumulative impact on traffic through this stretch of Santa Ana will be measurable. Homeowners who commute through Bristol, Sunflower, or the 55 Freeway on-ramps should plan for longer drive times during peak phases of both developments.
The longer-term story for homeowners is more favorable. Large-scale mixed-use redevelopment, when it is well-executed and well-funded, tends to improve property values in surrounding neighborhoods over time. The mechanisms are straightforward: new retail and dining activate the area and reduce the need to drive elsewhere, new office employment brings higher-income residents into the neighborhood's orbit, and well-maintained public parks raise the perceived quality of the surrounding blocks. The Segerstrom family's track record in this regard is strong. South Coast Plaza and the Segerstrom Center for the Arts have been substantial contributors to the desirability and value of surrounding Costa Mesa and Santa Ana neighborhoods for decades.
The city's tax revenue projection makes the case numerically. When the South Coast Plaza Village site currently generates just over $500,000 in annual tax revenue and The Village Santa Ana is projected to generate $5.5 million at full build-out, that additional $5 million per year in municipal revenue means more city services, better-maintained infrastructure, and a city government with more fiscal capacity to invest in the neighborhoods that surround the project. Combined with Related Bristol's own projected tax contributions, this corridor has the potential to become one of the most significant revenue-generating districts in Santa Ana, which benefits homeowners across the city through improved public services and a strengthened city balance sheet.
The practical advice for homeowners near the site: the next three to five years will come with disruption. The decade after that should come with appreciation. If you are thinking about selling in the short term, pricing decisions will need to factor in construction fatigue as a headwind. If your horizon is ten years or longer, the development story surrounding your home is getting materially stronger.
The Village Santa Ana Is One of the Biggest Redevelopment Stories in OC Right Now
A 17-acre site next to South Coast Plaza, 1,583 homes, a unanimous city council vote, and a development partnership between the family that built Orange County and one of the world's largest real estate firms. This project is not a proposal anymore. It is happening. If you are a buyer, a renter, or a homeowner anywhere in the South Coast corridor, understanding what is coming to this site is worth your time.
