Developer shrinks 2525 N. Main St. project in Santa Ana, but still may face residents’ resistance

Back to the drawing board since February, the developer of apartments planned across the street from Santa Ana’s Discovery Cube has returned with a pared-down project.

But it’s uncertain whether the revisions to the 2525 N. Main St. development will satisfy enough residents to avoid a repeat of February, when a grueling pair of City Council meetings lasted for hours as hundreds of people spoke on the project – many of them raising concerns.

Traffic, parking and the overall size and height of the complex drew enough opposition that Santa Ana city leaders encouraged developer Ryan Ogulnick to try again.

Revised plans submitted to the city late last month feature four-story buildings (down from six stories) that drop to three stories on the two sides closest to neighboring Park Santiago, a larger setback from the property line, no driveway onto Edgewood Road, and 356 apartments instead of the 476 units proposed earlier. Luxury amenities such as a rooftop pool and dog spa are still part of the proposal.

“We’ve talked to people in the community and we’ve changed it as much as we can,” Ogulnick said in a phone interview Monday, June 10. “Hopefully they’ll find it to be significant.”

There would also be a new intersection with a signal at the complex’s Main Street entrance, Ogulnick still plans to fund improvements to adjacent Santiago Park, and he has offered 24-hour security patrols not just for his project – known as 2525 Main or the Addington – but also for Park Santiago.

Ogulnick said the changes came after he met with community groups and individuals, with a focus on those who live closest to the 5.93-acre site where the apartments would be built; it’s now occupied by a vacant office building and parking lot.

But Park Santiago resident Dale Helvig had little praise for Ogulnick’s meeting with him and about 20 other residents, since it came after the developer filed his revised plans with the city.

Helvig remains concerned about the parking – an average of less than two spaces per unit – as well as the density of the project, he said. He and his neighbors would prefer something with fewer than 100 units.

Eric Mull, who lives in Fisher Park just west of the 5 freeway, opposed the original plans. He still worries about traffic from 2525 Main as well as 700 apartments that are a part of a recently approved overhaul for MainPlace mall, he said Tuesday.

“When you add tons of stuff in one area all at once, you’re just gonna have massive traffic,” he said.

He’s not sure the much smaller project Helvig prefers is realistic, and he does want to see the site redeveloped. Mull said he could live with a complex no taller than three stories and in the ballpark of 250 units.

Helvig said the new plans could come up for planning commission review as soon as July, when “we’ll be back with 200 residents again, if not more.”

Ogulnick said he’s never made so many changes to a project while still offering other benefits to the community.

“It’s one of these projects that the only way to satisfy the entirety of the community is no project,” he said.