Politics & Government

Despite Concerns About Too-Tall Towers, Medical Office Gets OK

The building will go on land the city of San Juan Capistrano is selling.

A medical office building planned for a lot the city is selling got the green light at Tuesday’s San Juan Capistrano Planning Commission meeting by the slimmest of margins.

The city is in escrow to sell the 4.8-acre lot across from the Marbella Plaza, which at one point was proposed to be a fire station. But the sale can’t close unless the plans are approved, said Tim LeBeau, principal at developer Accretive Realty, which exclusively builds medical buildings.

After several motions aiming to scale down the mass of the building, especially a 51-foot tower along the I-5 Freeway, failed to receive a second, Commissioner Evan Chaffee moved to approve it as presented, which passed 3-2, with Commissioners Roy Nunn and Tim Neely opposed.

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This was after Nunn gave Accretive a literal standing ovation for tweaking the plans as first presented at a Planning Commission meeting earlier this month.

“You just have to step out of the box a little bit,” said about reconfiguring the towers. “I don’t’ see any justification for that height at this point.”

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With the city as the current owner of the property, Interim Community Development Director Nelson Miller was put in the unusual position of advocating for approval.

“We are looking to sell this property to them, a property that has been on the city books for a long time,” he said. “I would ask consideration. Staff believes this project is within code.”

Staff noted in a report to the Planning Commission that there are several buildings with similarly sized towers along the freeway, including a 53-foot tower at South Coast Christian Assembly, a 50-foot rotunda at Fluidmaster and a 48-foot tower at the Capistrano Unified School District headquarters.

The medical building’s tower will be closer to the freeway than the others, but will be built on land much lower in elevation, according to the staff report.

LeBeau said the extra height on the floors and even the towers are needed so that the building has the structural wherewithal to hold very heavy and large radiology equipment.

“The constraints on this project are immense,” he said. “I would love a flat pad. I don’t want to build an elevator, but that’s the way the plot works.”

LeBeau said he does have a tenant – whom he refused to name – ready to go, a tenant who would prefer to have all the medical equipment on the first floor. But that’s not what the hilly parcel will allow.

To accommodate the site and the specifications of advanced medical technology, what he ended up with is “an upside building,” LeBeau said.


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