Santa Ana Making Deal on $30-Million Development

Hutton Development said Friday that it plans to launch a $30-million commercial office development on 3.5 acres in downtown Santa Ana next year as part of the city’s redevelopment program.

City redevelopment officials said that negotiations with Hutton are still in progress and that a final agreement has not yet been hammered out.

Under Santa Ana’s program, the redevelopment agency could offer Hutton various incentives, including a below-market price for the land, higher-than-normal density or city-financed infrastructure improvements.

Savoy Bellavia, vice president of Santa Ana-based Hutton, said the company wants to build a pair of seven-story glass, metal and precast concrete office buildings separated by a landscaped plaza.

Hutton intends to build in two phases beginning next spring. Each building will be 150,000 square feet, Bellavia said.

The site, now used as a parking lot, is on the southwest corner of Santa Ana Boulevard and Flower Street just south of the County Jail.

Roger Kooi, director of the city’s downtown development commission, said the parcel is at the far southern edge of the Civic Center redevelopment area.

But while the site is several blocks from other recently completed commercial projects in the Civic Center area, Hutton officials, in a prepared statement, called it an “ideal location . . . for businesses or government agencies that need to be in the Civic Center area” because of its location near the federal court facilities, the Superior Court and county and city offices.

Hutton is an 11-year-old real estate investment, development and management firm owned by Tobishima Corp. of Japan. It has been active in Santa Ana for a number of years and is best known for its 46-acre, $300-million Hutton Centre office and hotel complex near the Santa Ana-Costa Mesa border.

The company also is refurbishing the old Buffums department store building on Main Street in downtown Santa Ana for use as county government offices and recently bought the 2020 Building at 2020 E. 1st St. in Santa Ana.