Former Trinity Broadcasting headquarters is sold and set to be torn down for new housing

The distinctive former headquarters of the Christian media company Trinity Broadcasting Network in Costa Mesa has sold for $44.5 million, clearing the way for new housing.

The purchase of the ornate palazzo-style structure by Meritage Homes was expected after city officials in August approved Meritage’s plan to build 122 townhouses and 20 single-family homes on the site just south of the 405 Freeway.

Trinity, one of the world’s largest religious television networks, sold its Costa Mesa complex in 2017 after describing it as obsolete. The center dates to 1978.

It was most recently owned by Khoshbin Co., a Costa Mesa real estate company that positioned the property as an event venue.

Khoshbin paid $22 million for the six-acre property in 2021, according to real estate data provider CoStar.

“We’ve spent over $1 million improving the site, beautifying it, and I think the neighborhood really enjoys seeing some life [come back] into the property,” Manny Khoshbin told the city Planning Commission last year.

“We’ve been getting a lot of requests for events, weddings and birthdays, because it’s such a beautiful landscape,” he said.

The structure across the freeway from South Coast Plaza on Bear Street will be torn down to make way for the new housing. It has been a subject of fascination for years.

“With its classical columns, mirrors, faux gold and white marble everything, the Trinity compound’s look is ‘Gone With the Wind’ meets Caesars Palace,” The Times wrote in 1998.

“White walls are adorned with gold-framed floor-to-ceiling mirrors. Visitors climb the sweeping white marble stairway and come upon a 15-foot-tall statue of Michael the Archangel, his wings spread, his left foot planted on Satan’s head, hovering over the gilded grandeur,” the Times article said back then.

The gold-painted dome ceiling has a florid original mural of angels that Trinity Broadcasting founder Paul Crouch called “Orange County’s own Sistine Chapel.”

It will take about two years to redevelop the site as housing, Meritage told the city.

Planning commissioners credited Meritage’s plan for providing more housing in Costa Mesa, where 60% of residents rent their dwellings. There is high demand for housing in the coastal city and costs are climbing, the Daily Pilot said.

Meritage will designate seven units for very low-income occupants.

The new complex aims to provide housing for “the missing middle,” a segment of the population looking to move beyond renting but who cannot yet afford single-family homes, by offering townhouses that enable buyers to build equity, then move up the housing pyramid, the Daily Pilot said.