GARDEN GROVE : City Loses to Orange as OCTA Quarters

Garden Grove officials this week lost a bid to make their city the headquarters of the Orange County Transportation Authority when OCTA directors turned down a proposal to build a $10-million transportation building in the Civic Center area.

Instead, OCTA directors on Monday chose to lease space in the Union Bank Square building in Orange for the recently consolidated transportation agency. Final terms are expected to be worked out April 13.

Garden Grove officials, hoping to use the spending power of OCTA employees to boost an ailing economy, proposed to sell tax-exempt bonds to build a 100,000-square-foot headquarters near Euclid Street and Acacia Parkway. They said that under their plan, OCTA would make smaller lease payments and take ownership of the building after 25 years.

Orange County Supervisors Roger R. Stanton and Harriett M. Wieder, as OCTA directors, favored Garden Grove’s proposal, as did Westminster Mayor Charles V. Smith.

But seven directors voted to approve lease arrangements in Orange, reportedly believing that they could get better terms because of an abundance of vacant office space, OCTA spokeswoman Mona Zaida said.

About 175 OCTA administrative employees affiliated with bus operations will remain in the former Orange County Transit District building on Acacia Parkway in Garden Grove. There will also be about 550 employees at the bus maintenance and storage yard on Harbor Boulevard.

However, OCTA employees currently housed in PacTel and IDM buildings in Garden Grove will move to the new quarters in Orange, as will OCTA workers in Santa Ana.

OCTA employs 1,678 workers. About 300 will be based in the new headquarters building.

Garden Grove Mayor W.E. (Walt) Donovan said Tuesday that the decision to reject Garden Grove’s offer was disappointing.

“It was apparently wired before we got there,” he said. “We gave them real good terms. We were hampered by the five-minute limit (for comments). We only got about one-tenth of our presentation out.”

Donovan said it is a priority to develop the approximately nine acres of land that had been offered for the OCTA building. The site was formerly occupied by the Acacia Restaurant, which was torn down after a fire.

Donovan said officials will try to market the property at the International Conference of Shopping Centers in Las Vegas in May. It was at a previous Shopping Center conference that Garden Grove was able to land the Price Club as a future tenant, he said.