Chapman Ave.

City Pointe transformed a difficult downtown block into a vibrant, mixed-use residential community. The vision for City Pointe had long been seen as unachievable due to fractured land ownership, tight physical constraints, and a reworking of public amenities and infrastructure.  However, through strategic partnership with the city, careful negotiation with all stakeholders, and creative site planning, we helped bring one of downtown’s most impactful projects to life.  City Pointe became a catalyst for further investment and improvement and, to this day, remains a top residential community in Fullerton’s downtown district

Complex Land Assemblage

The opportunity involved multiple landowners with differing goals and agendas.  This presented extensive coordination and negotiation challenges to bring all stakeholders together into one coordinated development.  This required managing relationships across a diverse group of stakeholders—including landowners, city officials, neighboring businesses, and community groups—throughout an extended development timeline, with each party having varying motivations, timelines, and expectations that needed to be aligned.  Each parcel of land needed to work seamlessly in a combined framework that benefited all stakeholders and created a cohesive development site that could meet all of their needs. 

Public Infrastructure and Amenities

The development would require the abandonment of a downtown public street as well as the interruption and displacement of public parking, which would add significant scrutiny, negotiations, and regulatory complexity.

Constrained Urban Site

The tight infill parcel left little room for flexibility. To make the project work, the team had to develop creative solutions for circulation, parking, and building layout.

Orchestrating a Multi-Party Land Assemblage

John led negotiations with multiple landowners to unify the site, align all interests, coordinate a simultaneous closing, and create a single, buildable parcel.  This process began with first introductions and continued for many years until land closing. 

Public-Private Partnership

A public-private partnership was critical to address the concerns of the community stakeholders.  A downtown through-street was abandoned to help create the developable site.  Additionally, the loss of public parking needed to be mitigated.  Not only did the new project replace the lost parking, but it significantly added available spaces for the downtown retail merchants by dedicating an entire level of the parking garage for a shared-parking arrangement between the apartment residents and the community public.

Long-Term Vision and Creative Site Execution

John maintained momentum over a six-year process that others walked away from—abandoning a city street, overcoming urban constraints, and delivering a full-scale residential and retail project on a site most considered too difficult to develop.