STEELCRAFT pieces began assembly on Tuesday on Euclid Street in Garden Grove (Orange County Tribune photos).

Editor’s note: What could more of a Usually Reliable Source than the expert? There’s a lot of interest in projects in our cities and the status of each. In this installment of URS, we spoke to Lisa Kim, Garden Grove’s community and economic development director. We talked about a wide variety of stuff; here are the answers in a paraphrase form. Coming up:  A meeting with Kim’s Huntington Beach counterpart, Ursula Luna-Reynosa.

The Galleria, also known as the “rusty skeleton” on Garden Grove Boulevard (just west of Brookhurst). It will be a senior citizen housing project with 394 units.

City building staff is reviewing the structural report; parking structure plans are in plan check. Hopefully, work on the parking structure will start by the end of the year.

It’s now called Garden Brook.

Willowick Golf Course property, 101.5-acre site owned by the City of Garden Grove but located within Santa Ana City limits. Workshops have been held with residents of both cities to “re-imagine” future uses for the property as the golf course’s lease runs out soon.

The conceptual visioning has come down to three ideas:

• intense, such as a stadium or entertainment venue. Medium to high density residential.
• medium density, with open space, flex office space like an office campus.
• lower density, open space, cultural space, some office space, low density residential around the end of the project.

No developer has been chosen; the options will be presented to a joint meeting of the two city councils, maybe in January. Any development might be built in phases. “This is a 10- to 20-year project.”

Harbor Boulevard, especially relating to the 600-room Nickelodeon site on the west side (south of the existing Sheraton hotel) and “Site C” (across the street on the east side, two hotels with 769 rooms, plus conference and retail space).

• The Nickelodeon developer is in the environmental preview process, which will take six to nine months.
• The Site C developer is developing technical drawings for the project, including those of shoring and the foundation, expected to be submitted by the end of the year.

Brookhurst/Chapman

At the Promenade (north side of Chapman) Center, a full reconstruction and upgrade is planned for the existing McDonald’s restaurant.

The former Pavilions building (south side of Chapman, across the street) will be repurposed into a grocery market and a food hall. Entrances to the structure will be re-oriented to the north.

Downtown

• The SteelCraft project (14 eateries and such with communal dining areas on the east side of Euclid Street, north of Garden Grove Boulevard) is under development now. The shipping containers that will comprise the structures were moved into place on Tuesday. Opening is planned for March 2019.
• Cottage Industries project – 17 parcels, mostly re-purposed older houses – to be transformed into small businesses. Site is located between Civic Center Drive and Ninth Street. Developer Shaheen Sadeghi is focusing on leasing the spaces for Phase One.

Valley View corridor

The 2.71-acre site on Valley View (south of Chapman Avenue) now occupied by a four-screen cinema and a closed restaurant will be developed into a new project with an expanded cinema, a Jack In the Box fast food eatery, a sit-down restaurant (as yet unnamed) and an automatic car wash. The theater owner is in escrow to acquire the adjacent closed bowling alley building.

Usually Reliable Sources is usually posted on alternate Wednesdays.