Nexus Square to Provide Offices, Hotel, Shop Center

Nexus City Square, a $100-million office/hotel project, is beginning to rise on a site once occupied by a J C Penney subsidiary in Orange.

Designed by Langdon Wilson Mumper Architects, the office buildings will feature brick exteriors with dark reflective glass and a stepped-back facade.

The 365,000-square-foot office complex will consist of an eight-story tower and two four-story office buildings. The complex also will include a five-story hotel and a restaurant/retail center.

Irvine-based Nexus Development Corp. is developing the project on 20.14 acres at The City Drive and Garden Grove Boulevard, former site of J C Penney’s Treasury Department store, which closed almost five years ago. Nexus just completed its Nexus Financial Center, a 305,000-square-foot office complex in Orange.

Nexus City Square will be built in two phases. The tower, restaurant and shops are scheduled to be completed in April, 1987, followed by completion of the two office buildings about four months later. The hotel is due to open in mid-1987.

The complex will have a campus-like environment despite the high-rise and its expanses of glass. Ernest C. Wilson Jr., managing partner of Langdon Wilson Mumper Architects’ Newport Beach office, said, “This design enables tenants to choose from up to 10 corner offices with full-height vision glass on each floor.

“The arched entries feature the same full-height vision glass, leading into lobbies with travertine marble-covered walls, columns and floors. In addition, the project will be heavily landscaped with water features and grass berms.”

Nexus is owner/developer and general contractor for the project and will be responsible for marketing. Financing has been arranged by BA Mortgage, a subsidiary of BankAmerica Corp., of San Francisco.