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Urban-living, high-density apartments up for Costa Mesa council OK Tuesday

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Plans for hundreds of urban-living apartments in Costa Mesa’s South Coast Metro district are heading to the City Council for approval Tuesday.

The Sakioka family, known for its valuable Orange County real estate holdings and still-working Costa Mesa farmland nearby, is proposing to build a 393-unit, mid-rise apartment complex on their land at 585 and 595 Anton Blvd., about two blocks from South Coast Plaza and a block away from the Segerstrom Center for the Arts and South Coast Repertory. The nearly 5-acre project, called Symphony Apartments, would replace two vacant restaurant buildings and surface parking lots.

The apartments are a scaled-down version of an earlier project, Symphony Towers, that called for 484 condominiums within two high-rise towers, one 26 stories tall and the other 16. The towers were approved by the council in 2007.

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Symphony Apartments — with a density of 81 units an acre — is designed as two six-story structures that are as high as 75 feet and are connected by a pedestrian bridge. The developer is San Francisco-based Wilson Meany.

The units would range from 750 square feet to 1,392 square feet and contain one or two bedrooms. Some will be 794-square-foot lofts.

Symphony Apartments would also contain about 4,000 square feet of retail space and more than $6 million worth of on-site amenities, including pools and spas, exercise rooms, club houses, a small dog park and open plazas.

The plans provide 731 parking spaces, or more than city parking requirements.

Among the other considerations for the council is charging the developer a special fee for each apartment unit that would go toward city parks. Because the development contains apartments and is not ownership housing, however, the fee is not required, but is up to the council’s discretion.

If built, Symphony Apartments would be one of several high-density developments in the area. In the Costa Mesa city limits, nearby is 3400 Avenue of the Arts, a 770-unit complex, and The Enclave at South Coast, which has 890 units spread about 40 acres.

About a block north, in Santa Ana, are four large housing complexes off Sunflower Avenue, three of which are for apartments.

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