Shopping Center Proposed Where Downtown Hotel Once Planned

The answer to the question, Will the Plaza Banderas Hotel in downtown San Juan Capistrano be built? is no.

A shopping mall developer has filed a preliminary application with the city to build a 65,000-square-foot shopping center at the property, which lines Ortega Highway between Mission San Juan Capistrano and the I-5 Freeway.

“This project would replace the previously proposed Plaza Banderas project,” writes City Manager Karen Brust in her weekly report.

Plaza Banderas was a 124-room boutique hotel approved in 2011. But landowner Gretchen Stroscher Thomson never broke ground, unable to find a hotel operator.

Now comes Goveia Comemrcial Real Estate of Dana Point, which proposes a two-story shopping center with most of the space, 52,000 square feet of it, on the first level.

Goveia has built strip malls and office buildings throughout Orange and San Diego counties.

Patch will have more information as it becomes available.