Former School Campus, Nearly 800 Additional Acres Go on Market

ANZA, CA-One of the largest and most unusual property listings in the Inland Empire has hit the market in the form of a 100-acre, 76,000-sf former school campus and 778 additional acres of raw land about 30 miles east of the fast-growing city of Temecula. Ross Smith, part of a Phoenix-based team from Grubb & Ellis|BRE Commercial that landed the listing, tells GlobeSt.com that the seller is asking $12 million for the school and $16 million for the land.The school and the land are both being sold by Trinity Children & Family Services, a Colton-based nonprofit organization. The Grubb & Ellis|BRE team includes Smith and Sandi Elmore, both land brokers, and Gordon Raguse an office broker.Smith tells GlobeSt.com that the brokerage teams expect two buyers for the properties. For the school, which Smith describes as "in excellent condition," the team is focusing on institutions that could use the facility, either as-is or with some modifications.For the other 778 acres, the team is targeting prospective developers. The land would probably be best suited for a planned community, possibly an active adult project, Smith says, depending on what the developer and Riverside County officials would determine.The school campus, about 30 years old, originally was built by a trade union that used it to house apprentices and train them in concrete work. Later, Trinity bought it and operated it as a school for troubled youths."A school district or some other institution could come in and use the campus pretty much as is," Smith says. The remaining acreage, which formerly was a ranch and is surrounded on three sides by the San Bernardino National Forest, would need to be developed according to the Riverside County General Plan."The entitlements are an interesting story," Smith says, explaining that the land previously was zoned for a density of about one unit per five acres under the former county general plan. The revised plan would require a developer to work with the county on environmental studies of the property to determine guidelines for its development.The new general plan strongly emphasizes conservation, so a developer would probably need to agree to set aside certain areas for wildlife habitat in order to secure entitlements, Smith points out. By working with the county to set aside such areas, Smith says, a developer might be able to negotiate the right densities in remaining portions of the land to build a planned community.