Meritage Homes Buys Trinity Broadcasting Campus in Costa Mesa

The former Costa Mesa headquarters of Trinity Broadcasting Network is on the road to resi redevelopment.

Meritage Homes bought the 6-acre property at 3150 Bear Street in Costa Mesa for $44.5 million, the Orange County Business Journal reported. The former home of the Christian media company spans 70,800 square feet, and the sale price works out to $7.4 million per acre.

Newport Beach-based Meritage secured approvals from the City of Costa Mesa in August to build 142 homes at the site.

The seller was Manny Khoshbin, whose Irvine-based Khoshbin Company bought the site in 2021 for $22 million and marketed it as an event venue. CBRE’s Anthony DeLorenzo, Greg Sullivan, Sammy Cemo and Bryan Johnson represented the seller.

The plan calls for detached two-story single-family homes and four-story stacked flats. Two-bedroom, two-bathroom units will span 1,000 square feet, while four-bedroom, three-bathroom homes will span 2,400 square feet.

The development is expected to take about two years.

Trinity built its former Bear Street headquarters in 1976. The site has been in flux since the broadcaster vacated it in 2017, leaving behind film studios, a theater and parking facilities that sparked multiple reinvention and redevelopment attempts.

Education First Properties floated an international language school before the pandemic scuttled the plan.

After Khoshbin Company bought the property in 2021, the firm reimagined the grounds as “The Palazzo by Khoshbin,” leaning into the property’s European-inspired design in opening an event venue.

Meritage Homes has been active in the area. Earlier this year, it bought an office building at 2020 East First Street in Santa Ana for $19.2 million. The 111,500-square-foot, five-story building is being redeveloped into 86 townhomes.

Elsewhere in Costa Mesa, Legacy Partners is planning a massive residential redevelopment of the L.A. Chargers’ former training facility that would bring 1,050 housing units and retail space.

— Chris Malone Méndez