A vision for two aging shopping centers may introduce a new kind of living to the South Coast Metro area, one that would create a very different south Bristol Street corridor in one of Orange County’s most popular destinations for shopping and culture. Related Bristol is a proposed mixed-use development in an area of the county that has seen little new housing construction in recent years and has largely stayed true to the traditional distinct separation of housing and commercial development.
Envisioned is a two-block development of up to 3,750 residential units, a 250-room hotel, a 200-unit tower for senior living, and up to 350,000 square feet of restaurants and shops, a grocer, as well as 13 acres of open space for the public, all mixed together in a new neighborhood. If approved, developer Related California, based in Irvine, could break ground on the project as early as 2026, though the phased construction would likely take until 2036.
The South Coast Metro area, which spans Costa Mesa and Santa Ana, is already the county’s cultural center. The Segerstrom Center for the Arts, the Orange County Museum of Art, and South Coast Plaza draw millions of visitors to the area each year. Just across the street from the arts area and the plaza, the two blocks on the west side of Bristol Street between MacArthur Boulevard and Sunflower Avenue have seen little change in decades. They have been owned by the Callens family for more than 100 years.
In the 1970s, as South Coast Plaza took root, the Callens family turned their farming land into two shopping centers surrounded by parking lots. It’s home now to large retailers such as Ross Dress for Less and Hobby Lobby, a Vons, restaurants of varying size, smaller storefront businesses, and a couple of banks.
“Today we’re at a crossroads driven by three major factors. One, it’s just the changing nature of retail. Consumer preferences are changing,” said Steven Oh, executive vice president at Related California and lead executive on the Related Bristol project. “The second part is unique to this center. All of the leases on this property expire at the end of 2025,” he said. “Every single lease. It is an interesting challenge, but also a unique opportunity. This center is going to change one way or another. We just have to collectively think about what we want the center to change into for the next generations to come.”
The third factor, Oh said, is the vision city leaders have for the future role of this southern end of town. “They themselves had a vision for this south portion of Santa Ana to find opportunities to take these sort of auto-centric 1970s-era shopping centers and transform them into mixed-use villages that really encourage the idea of community gathering and take a sort of outdated model, and transform it for the next generations to come,” Oh said.
The Callens family and the developers set priorities when coming up with the Related Bristol plan, Oh said, which included a “people first” design with community-centric landscaping and high walkability. The vision, Oh explained, is to create a one-stop location where residents and visitors can shop, dine, grab groceries, and enjoy open space. “Imagine you can come in, grab a cup of coffee, meet with your friend, make a business call out on the park, grab lunch, get your groceries, and then go home.”
The team behind the project wants to address Santa Ana’s – and Orange County’s – housing crisis, changing retail landscape, and lack of public community spaces, by creating a development that can address all three issues in one location. “There’s a focus on residential because there hasn’t been a lot of it. You’re seeing a little bit of that now in the area,” Bill Witte, CEO and founder of Related California, said. “Second, it is a very different kind of mixed-use experience, more open to the public, more open air. One-third of the site is devoted to public use and open space, more pedestrian-friendly. “It’s not New York, nor is it intending to be,” he said of the development that will span the full 42-acre property. “But we think this is an opportunity to create a major urban center for the county, that happens to be in Santa Ana.”
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