Child Care Part of Office Complex : Twin Towers to House IBM Orange County Operations

Recognizing the realities of demographics and two-income families, the developer of One South Coast Place in Costa Mesa will provide a day-care center adjacent to the twin-tower office complex that will house IBM’s Orange County operations.

Ground will be broken this week, with completion scheduled for late 1989 on the complex to be built on a 16-acre site north of the San Diego Freeway between Harbor Boulevard and Fairview Road, according to a spokesman for developer C. J. Segerstrom & Sons, Costa Mesa.

Designed by the architectural firm of CRSS Inc., Irvine, the project--valued at more than $100 million--will have two office towers: A 20-story, 377,200-square-foot building and a 12-story, 253,400-square-foot tower joined by a skylighted pavilion that will also link the building to a 2,260-space parking structure. Both towers will be faced with limestone and will have sloping mansard roofs.

The 53,700-square-foot pavilion will house an art museum, restaurant, athletic club and shops. The Segerstrom firm has more than a little familiarity with retail, being the developer of the South Coast Plaza complex, about a mile away.

In the last 15 years, the South Coast area has burgeoned into the “downtown” of Orange County--along with Fairfax County, Virginia and Long Island, New York--one of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas without a single large city at its heart.

The 15,000-square-foot child-care center will serve 120 preschoolers and will be built on an adjoining 2.3-acre site, within walking distance of One South Coast Place.

Incorporated into the project will be a traffic management program making use of flex-time, ride-sharing and van pools. Segerstrom is also working with local and state transportation agencies to ensure that traffic flow is not harmed by the project’s construction.

More than $6 million will be spent on traffic improvements for added lanes and traffic signals, turn-lane widening and intersection improvements in the region, the Segerstrom spokesman said.