Urban Villages come to the OC

The reality sets in across urban Southern California: 6 million people by 2030. Where will they go?

Developers in Orange County want to solve the problem with vertical mixed-use developments that place apartments and condos over retail or workspaces. Large central county cities like Anaheim, Santa Ana, and Irvine all have projects in the works because planning departments are finally adding some flexibility to their books:

In the Platinum Triangle, an area of predominantly industrial buildings near Anaheim Stadium and the Arrowhead Pond, the city has loosened the zoning with the goal of encouraging private companies to bring their own proposals to the city. Instead of micromanaging what's going there, the city is throwing open the doors, believing that the market will turn this area into a vibrant downtown for the county. The city expects high-rise offices, new commercial centers, new housing and the emergence of a mixed-use neighborhood where underutilized buildings now stand.

Already developers have plans in the works:

CREA/Nexus Anaheim Corners LLC, an affiliate of the residential division of Nexus Properties Inc. of San Diego, plans a 390-unit apartment complex and 11,000 sf ground-floor retail space.

There's another innovative project in the pipeline for Santa Ana:

Urban+West+Strategies and the Lennar South Coast Division plan 108 units of for-sale, live-work lofts at the companies’ new Santiago Street Lofts, which the developers describe as a transit-oriented development across from the Santa Ana Train Depot...The 108 units will be three stories each and will range from about 1,540 sf to 2,300 sf, with the ground floors of the lofts designed especially to accommodate the work portion of the live-work spaces. “A key to the project is that the work spaces will be completely separate from the living spaces,” DiRienzo emphasizes.

Live-work strategies like these will become increasingly prevalent in future years. America's workers are trading in stodgy corporate jobs to become free agent marketing consultants and indie publishers. Trends like outsourcing and improved collaboration and conferencing technology will allow more people to telecommute and stay mobile. Office condos, wireless networking enabled Starbucks, and live-work spaces meld perfectly with these 21st Century workers.

Sure, single family tract homes will continue gobbling up the deserts of the Inland Empire but for those who prefer to live in vibrant urban environments these new projects are exciting developments.