The Orange City Council unanimously voted Dec. 13 to approve the sale of a property near Panther Village to Chapman University for $6.5 million to build more student housing.

Councilman Mike Alvarez said that preliminary information he has seen from Chapman shows a plan to expand Panther Village by adding two new mid-rise buildings, about five to eight stories each, on the now-empty lot. The 112,570 square foot property is owned by the city of Orange and was purchased for the purpose of building a water well, but is currently vacant.

University spokesperson Mary Platt said that Chapman will immediately start the process of building new student housing.

“The university has been searching for a significant period of time for property outside the Old Towne Historical District on which to build student housing,” Platt wrote in a statement. “Once we learned of the property’s availability, we submitted a generous proposal because we recognized, through the work of the Neighborhood Advisory Committee, how important it was to provide additional student housing.”

Platt said that acquiring this property helps Chapman reach its goal of having half the student population live on campus, a change Alvarez agrees with.

“We hope that if (the Panther Village addition) ultimately gets built, and then with the new dorms at Cypress and Palm, that it will allow the university to require students, maybe in their first and second year, to live in student housing, which we hope would pull the students out of the residential neighborhoods, especially Old Towne, and kind of get them in that environment. That’s the goal. If we get there or not, ask me once they’re built,” Alvarez said. 

Alvarez said that although the the university offered $6.5 million in cash for the lot, the price will end up significantly lower. City documents put the appraised price at $2.4 to 6 million, meaning that the property could be reduced in price by almost 60 percent. The university was one of two bidders, the other a private individual, competing for the property. 

“Because of two things, it’s landlocked, so you can’t get to it from the street and it’s right up against the (I-5) freeway, the price is going to be discounted drastically,” Alvarez said. “Because we’re a government agency, we have to demonstrate a fair price first and then do the discount.”

Alvarez said that based on similar projects, the university will not present a formal plan to city council for about nine months. From that point, the process, which involves approvals at each step,  could last for the next few years. Although the university has told the city that it wants to move quickly on the construction of the site, Alvarez said that the university will be subject to the same processes as any other potential builder. 

“We’re probably looking at two to three years down the road,” Alvarez said. “Because it’s a new project, a new building project, it’ll go through the normal channels of any new project.”

Although Alvarez was enthusiastic that the university has chosen to focus on housing rather than expansion, the new Center for Science and Technology, which is expected to increase the number of students enrolled at Chapman, is set to be finished as early as 2018 – which would likely precede the completion of any off-campus dormitories.

“(The university) has an agreement where they can’t expand, I want to say up to 8,000 or 11,000 students. They’re still under the cap. There’s still maybe 2,000 students that they can add legally with the city saying nothing,” Alvarez said. 

The city will reserve a 100 by 150 foot rectangular area of the land to build a water well, which is what the land was initially reserved for before it was advertised to potential buyers. 

Chapman officials were not immediately available for comment. Follow The Panther as we continue reporting on this story.