Developer to Buy 26 Acres Next to Track

Hollywood Park Realty said Friday that it has tentatively agreed to sell about 26 acres adjoining the Los Alamitos Race Course in Cypress for $15.8 million to Irvine-based Bay Development Corp., which plans to build a hotel, restaurant and office development on the property.

Completion of the transaction is contingent on city approval of the master plan for development, said Karen Fredericks, Bay Development operations manager. She said that development company officials most familiar with the details of the plan were not available for comment Friday afternoon. If the city approves the plan, she said, it will be about a year before construction begins.

Hal W. Brown, chairman of Hollywood Park Realty Enterprises Inc., said in a prepared statement that the sale to Bay Development would be the first step in the projected development of a 300-acre parcel, including the 200-acre Los Alamitos Race Course, that Hollywood Park Realty bought early last year for $58 million. Previously, the tract, which contains one of the largest undeveloped parcels in northwest Orange County, was owned and controlled primarily by the Vessels family, which opened the race track.

Marjorie L. Everett, chairman of the board of Hollywood Park Operating Co., which holds harness and quarter horse racing at Los Alamitos, called the sale “a significant event because it is the beginning of major development at the Los Alamitos property, including hotels, restaurants and office complexes. We have been assured that the development will be designed to complement the activities at Los Alamitos Race Course.”

Hollywood Park Realty also has said it plans to remodel and upgrade the race course.