In-N-Out, Dutch Bros, Dave’s Hot Chicken coming to Beach Boulevard in Anaheim

A decades-long civic quest to redevelop Anaheim’s 1.5-mile stretch of Beach Boulevard is getting new life in the form of three popular chains slated to join the highway’s future.

During an update on the Rebuild Beach Initiative delivered at Tuesday’s city council meeting, In-N-Out, Dutch Bros and Dave’s Hot Chicken were announced as tenants coming to the corner of Beach Boulevard and Lincoln Avenue.

For Ryan Balius, a council member who lives less than a mile from Beach Boulevard, the announcement was a welcomed one.

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“We’re seeing real developments… with many more to come,” he said. “Much-needed housing construction is currently underway, with more planned.”

The effort to revamp Beach Boulevard has faced numerous challenges through the years, including the self-described “environmental nightmare” of trying to build on a former landfill site at the intersection.

Despite efforts to acquire and demolish a glut of dilapidated motels, more than a dozen still remain.

Anaheim police have also had to retool how they approach public safety concerns regarding the presence of drugs, sex trafficking, gambling and other criminal activities that hover in and around the boulevard’s motels.

But during Tuesday’s update, city officials highlighted progress on all fronts.

“Rebuild Beach is a model for corridor transformation,” said deputy city manager Ted White. “It does require sustained, long-term investment, but the efforts have been impactful: safer streets, higher quality of life and renewed economic vitality.”

In October, CalTrans turned control of the highway over to Anaheim, a move city officials hailed as a “milestone” that is expected to bolster landscaping efforts along its medians and streamline improvements to its right of way.

The Rainbow Inn on Beach Boulevard in Anaheim.

(Gabriel San Roman)

A $25-million effort to underground power and communication lines strung along Beach Boulevard is already in progress and is expected to be completed by 2026.

Housing construction on a nearly four-acre plot emptied by already demolished motels near the intersection of Beach Boulevard and Lincoln Avenue will begin this Spring.

Brandywine Homes is set to transform the plot into 47 affordable housing rental units for multigenerational families with an additional 60 townhomes for sale.

The Rainbow Inn, a motel the city threatened to seize but purchased for $6.9 million last summer, will soon be demolished to make way for more housing.

Amid all the redevelopment activity, the cornerstone piece of the highway in Anaheim is also its most perplexing one.

Referred to in the past as “Sinkin’ Lincoln” and “Stinkin’ Lincoln,” the 27-acre site of a former landfill once was anchored by a Tower Records where a young Gwen Stefani hung out to see if anybody recognized her as No Doubt began to soar in popularity.

These days, the plot is a fragmented testament to dreams and difficulties of turning its fate around.

It has suffered under the brunt of escalating remediation costs, a dissolved redevelopment agency and the sudden withdrawal of Lowe’s Home Improvement, an anchor tenant, in 2016.

Despite the challenges, the first residential phase arrived in the form of the Nolin, where 65 townhomes were built and sold.

A housing development at the site of the former Americana Motel is a more immediate upgrade coming to Beach this year.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

The larger 39 Commons vision for the site entails retail, a grocery store and potential mixed-used developments.

Disney has also pledged to contribute public art in the form of the retired sun wheel from its California Adventure theme park.

City staff acknowledged numerous challenges to timely redevelopment, including high cost of building materials and labor as well as rental rates that grocery chains are willing to pay for a location in the area.

“At this point, we’re the farthest along we’ve ever been,” said Sergio Ramirez, Anaheim’s director of economic development.

Later this year, phased construction will begin at 39 Commons to make way for retail. The city expects In-N-Out, Dave’s Hot Chicken and Dutch Bros to open sometime in 2026 and 2027.

For Balius, it’s a sign that patience can bring progress.

“There’s almost nothing more important to me than getting Beach Boulevard moving forward,” he said. “As a resident, I see progress, and that is something that I couldn’t say three years ago.”