Buena Park’s longtime Amway Nutrilite training campus is officially headed for a full-scale makeover into a 281-unit neighborhood, complete with affordable apartments for seniors. City leaders this week signed off on a plan that would swap corporate training grounds for townhomes, duet homes and a four-story senior building, while labor groups pushed to make sure local workers get a fair shot at the jobs that come with it.
The project, led by Irvine-based Shopoff Realty Investments, will put 114 townhomes and 117 duet homes around a dedicated senior housing building on about 13.8 acres at 5600 Beach Boulevard. Fifty of the apartments in that senior building will be reserved as affordable units, a key detail that helped win over housing advocates and gave the developer access to a density bonus without expanding the project’s footprint.
What the council approved and why it matters
At its Tuesday meeting, the City Council voted unanimously to grant the entitlements needed to rezone the former Amway site and clear the way for the housing plan, according to the Los Angeles Times. The project filing on the state’s CEQA portal lays out a 281-unit buildout that includes 50 affordable senior apartments, 114 townhomes and 117 duets spread across roughly 13.8 acres, per the CEQA record.
Those 50 income-restricted senior units did more than score political goodwill. The CEQA documents show that including the affordable senior building allowed the developer to qualify for a density bonus, bumping up total homes while keeping the overall site plan relatively compact.
Who’s building it and what they paid
Shopoff Realty Investments bought the nearly 14-acre Amway campus last year for about $60 million and has teamed up with Lennar Homes to actually build out the neighborhood, according to industry materials. On its project site, Shopoff lays out conceptual site plans, parking counts, small parks and open spaces, along with a phased construction schedule that anticipates the first homes arriving sometime in 2029 to 2030.
Company materials project hundreds of millions of dollars in economic output tied to the development and pitch the community as a mix that can serve both first-time buyers moving into ownership and longtime Buena Park residents who want to downsize into senior rentals without leaving the city.
Support, labor concerns and neighborhood trade-offs
The plan drew support from local business and housing advocates, including the Orange County Business Council and People for Housing OC. The latter’s executive director highlighted the project’s split focus on younger buyers and older residents, framing it as a rare attempt to serve two of the county’s most squeezed groups in one site.
Labor representatives, meanwhile, used the hearing to press for a formal workforce agreement. They urged the council to require commitments to local hiring, prevailing wages and state-certified apprenticeship programs. Council members in turn questioned the developers about how they would prioritize Buena Park workers as construction ramps up.
Shopoff representatives told the council that “affordable housing is a big mission for our company” and pointed to plans for an on-site manager in the senior building to help fixed-income renters navigate services and stay housed, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Next steps and timeline
City approval does not mean shovels hit the ground immediately. The project still needs building permits, grading sign-offs and proof that mitigation measures spelled out in city records and the state’s environmental review are actually put in place.
An Initial Study/Mitigated Negative Declaration for the development was logged with the state on April 2, and the CEQA posting lists a General Plan amendment, zone change, tentative tract map and conditional use permit among the local actions the developer sought, according to the CEQA record.
Shopoff and city staff estimate that, if everything stays on track, the first homes at the former Amway site could open to the public in 2029 at the earliest, with phased construction continuing into 2030, per Shopoff Realty Investments.
