But at night, the county’s second-largest manufacturing hub becomes ghostly quiet.
“This place is dead after 6 p.m.,” said Shawn Dewan, vice president of Genesis Computer Systems, which opened 21 years ago in the area. “I have several employees who would love to live here, instead of living in Santa Ana or Garden Grove.”
That might happen soon.
Though there are a few strip malls and an apartment complex with roughly 300 units in the area, city officials are looking to marry the two. Negotiations are underway to bring Anaheim Canyon’s first mixed-use retail and residential project, a move planners say is part of a larger, smarter growth design to bring homes and jobs closer together in an urban setting.
“A lot of people in Southern California are tired of long commutes,” said John Woodhead, head of Anaheim’s Community Development Department. “So we want to provide an option that allows people to live and work in the same general area.”
With La Palma Avenue as its spine, the 2,600-acre Anaheim Canyon, once anchored by aerospace giant Boeing, has few places to shop, eat and play.
City officials hope to jump-start a new sense of community, starting at the southern edge of the industrial zone. Newly updated zoning codes envision a modern urban village centered on 255,042 square feet of shops and restaurants, up to 1,256 apartments or condominiums and a Metrolink commuter rail station on the Los Angeles-to-Riverside line.
Other residential projects someday might be considered near La Palma Avenue and Kraemer Boulevard “on a case-by-case basis,” said city spokesman Mike Lyster.
“By adding homes, restaurant, shops, walking trails and other amenities, we believe we will enhance Anaheim Canyon’s appeal among employers and employees, which in turn makes open spaces in the area more attractive,” Lyster said.
The ambitious new plans are the latest chapter for an ever-evolving jobs zone that has mirrored the ups and downs of the Orange County economy for generations.
Anaheim’s agricultural industry waned in the 1950s and gave rise to the defense industry led by Autonetics – later known as Rockwell and then finally Boeing. In its heyday, the aerospace giant was the city’s second-largest employer with some 36,000 workers – in good-paying jobs – charged with developing technologies that guided ballistic missiles and submarines for the military.
As Boeing’s footprint shrank with the contraction of the aerospace industry in the 1990s, city officials rebranded the area as Anaheim Canyon and began pursuing a new strategy to attract a greater mix of industrial businesses to fill the void.
Construction on the nearby 91, 57 and 55 freeways made Anaheim Canyon an ideal area for freight distribution, eventually attracting other manufacturers to the neighborhood.
By the time Boeing moved the last of its employees from Anaheim in the late 2000s, Dewan’s computer company had lost its best client.
The loss rippled through the area. But many companies, like Genesis, hung on and found new customers.
“A number of the businesses that were here then are still here,” Dewan said.
Then, the Great Recession swept through Anaheim Canyon’s brown-and-slate-colored business parks, leaving about one-third of the large industrial buildings empty, he said. Genesis cut employees and reduced costs, won a rent reduction from his landlord and diversified its product line.
As the economy gradually recovered, Kaiser Permanente completed a $245 million hospital four years ago in the heart of the area. And last year, a 1.35 million-square-foot business park known as Anaheim Concourse was completed.
Now, Dewan said, with the city’s help the area has rebounded – most of the offices are filled and the leasing agencies are busy.
Today, the area boasts 2,953 companies and 72,000 jobs, making it second in the county only to the Irvine Spectrum in terms of contiguous industrial acreage, city officials said. Anaheim Canyon is also the second-largest jobs center in the city after the resort area with Disneyland, the Convention Center and myriad hotels.
“Orange County is the type of market where you have entrepreneurial people who start their own companies, so this is the perfect location that draws a labor force that’s commuting from the coastal areas and the Inland Empire,” said Brad Bierbaum, senior vice president of CBRE, which has leased 84 percent of the space offered at Anaheim Concourse.
Despite the improvements, there are still some 200 vacant parcels in Anaheim Canyon and there are buildings considered to be obsolete for industrial or office space, according to a city report.
To remedy that, the area’s updated zoning plan allows for up to 1.33 million square feet of new office space and 1.23 million square feet of additional industrial space.
Ray Young, a retired urban planning professor who taught for 37 years at Cal State Fullerton, said driving through Anaheim Canyon he sees “an interesting case study in how an area can reinvent itself after aerospace leaves.”
“I think it’s still early to use terms like ‘success,’ ” Young said. “But it is certainly an inviting and intriguing area.”
About three years ago, Hestan Commercial opened a 74,000-square-foot manufacturing facility for high-end commercial kitchen appliances, complete with a showroom and testing kitchen to show off restaurant-quality ovens, fryers and griddles.
“A lot of commercial manufacturers tend to make their way out to Ontario or Fontana, but we felt that our high-quality brand would be better positioned in an area like Anaheim,” said Basil Larkin, vice president of sales for Hestan Commercial.
“It’s the kind of city name that people recognize around the country, even if it is tied to Disneyland,” Larkin said.
“There are also a lot of opportunities because the roads are wide and you’re close to three major freeways.”
Anaheim Canyon’s long industrial history has been changing in multiple ways. In recent years, some of the large, vacant warehouses have attracted big religious congregations.
Eastside Christian Church occupies two of Boeing’s former buildings on Miraloma Avenue. Farther east, about half a dozen other churches have sprung up along La Palma Avenue, including Calvary Chapel, Cornerstone Church and Community Christian Church.
“The city has a commitment to improve the area,” said Jeff Hertzig, director of operations at Eastside Christian Church, whose father worked as a government accountant at the old Boeing plant. “Where else can you get more than 1,000 parking spaces? I think it’s just going to keep getting better.”
©2016 The Orange County Register (Santa Ana, Calif.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
