Arrimus Capital Tries New Law to OK 500 Homes in Santa Ana

Arrimus Capital has ramped up a six-year fight with the City of Santa Ana over a rejected plan to replace a vacant office building with nearly 500 homes.

The Newport Beach-based developer now wants to use a new state housing law to fast-track approval of a 498-unit apartment complex at 2525 North Main Street, the Orange County Business Journal reported.

An attorney for Arrimus said she’s optimistic the developer’s proposal will be automatically approved via Assembly Bill 2011, which allows for streamlined, ministerial approval for affordable housing on commercially zoned land.

The AB 2011 and SB 9 companion laws, signed last month by Gov. Gavin Newsom, grants affordable housing projects “by right” approvals, exempting them from the CEQA approval process and overriding local zoning.

“Implementation and enforcement of state housing laws, including AB 2011, is a matter of significant public interest,” Caroline Chase, partner at Allen Matkins Leck Gamble Mallory & Natsis and an attorney for Arrimus, said in an email to the Business Journal.

Prior actions by the city, she said, “are legally ineffective.”

Arrimus has tried and failed for years to convince Santa Ana to approve its project north of the 5 Freeway.

In 2017, Arrimus and Los Angeles-based Vineyards Development bought the 81,000-square-foot office building on 6 acres across from the Discovery Cube for $17 million.

Before its purchase, Arrimus had filed plans to replace the two-story building with 517 apartments. Neighbors in nearby Park Santiago pushed back, citing traffic and parking.

In 2019, Arrimus cut the proposed apartments to 256 units, which didn’t satisfy residents. The next year, a referendum petition by neighbors prompted the Santa Ana City Council to withdraw prior approval. A lawsuit challenging the petition failed.

Plans now call for a six-story complex with 498 apartment units and 648 parking spaces.

But Santa Ana, hoping to skirt AB 2011 and its commercial component, passed an ordinance to exclude 2525 North Main areas affected by the law. State Attorney General Rob Bonta, however, determined the city’s ordinance to be invalid.

Arrimus, founded in 1994, is headed by Chris Lee and his father, Ray Wirta, the former president of Newport Beach-based Irvine Company and former chairman of CBRE Group, once based in Los Angeles and now headquartered in Dallas.

— Dana Bartholomew