GARDEN BROOK SENIOR VILLAGE, once nicknamed “the rusty skeleton,” is back under construction on Garden Grove Boulevard, near Brookhurst Street.

If the steel-framed project begun in 2004 on Garden Grove Boulevard was a teenage kid, it would almost be ready to get its drivers’ license.

But the Galleria, as the development was originally known and which has earned the name “rusty skeleton,” is back under construction and what’s now called the Garden Brook Senior Village is slated for completion and occupancy in early 2021.

That’s the word from Lisa Kim, Garden Grove’s assistant city manager and community and economic development director. The Tribune recently consulted with her and Gregg Blodgett, senior project manager, for our semi-annual update on growth in the city.

Here’s other news from that conversation:

• West Grove Center: This project on Valley View Street near Lampson Avenue is now seeing a car wash under construction with plans to expand the existing four-screen cinema into a larger facility on the portion of the site formerly occupied by a bowling alley. A new Jack-in-The Box is slated for the site and “the landlord continues to market the site for a full-service restaurant.”
• The Brookhurst Place residential complex at Garden Grove Boulevard and Brookhurst Street will expand with about 400 new apartments (60 of which will be affordable housing), a 100-room “boutique” hotel and some additional commercial. Construction should begin in about six months.
• Across the street at the northwest corner of that intersection, on a site long occupied by a furniture store and a used-car lot, the land is zoned for mixed-use, with commercial uses, likely including medical on the ground floor and residential above.
• SteelCraft, the outdoor urban eatery which opened in late 2019 on Euclid Street, is doing well, according to Kim. “It’s absolutely meeting their expectations,” she said. Some of the vendors there are having so much success, Kim added, that they are considering expanding to additional locations.
• The Site C hotel project south of the Target store on the east side of Harbor Boulevard is in “plan check” and “hopefully you’ll see some dirt move pretty soon.” The project will include 769 rooms in two luxury hotels.
• A Nickelodeon-themed hotel across the street on the west side of Harbor is undergoing design work and it’s anticipated going before the city’s planning commission “sometime before the end of the year.”
• Cottage Industries, a project reusing older houses for eateries and craft businesses and even a retro-themed motel in the area between Civic Center Drive and Ninth Street, has won planning commission approval for its second phase and residents will “probably see construction early summer if not sooner.”
• The first hotel along Harbor to be built south of the Garden Grove Freeway, the Home2 Suites, is under construction on what was once the site of a Mazda car dealership. As planned, it’s a five-story, 124-room structure. Completion is expected in 2021.