The 230-room Hotel Saddleback at 12500 Firestone Boulevard, sitting just off the I-5 freeway in Norwalk, is set to be torn down and replaced with 120 single-family homes and townhomes alongside a new four-story, 130-room hotel. The redevelopment plan for the 7.7-acre site has now cleared city approval, closing out a lengthy standoff between developer Brandywine Homes and a city that spent much of the past two years fighting the state over its housing policies.
The city approved Brandywine’s proposal to demolish Hotel Saddleback and build the new hotel, single-family homes and townhomes, according to The Real Deal, citing reporting from Urbanize Los Angeles. The housing portion will sit on about 5.9 acres and includes two- to three-story buildings with three-bedroom and four-bedroom floor plans, while roughly 1.8 acres is allocated to the new hotel. Once finished, the development will include parking for more than 400 vehicles. Per the same account, additional details on the hotel itself have not been disclosed, since the project could still change depending on market conditions and which operator is eventually selected to run it.
Design work on the two components has been split between separate teams. Urbanize LA reports that Angeleno Associates is designing the 120 residential units for Brandywine Homes, while Flores Design Group is handling the adjacent hotel for developer Vaidehi Inc. The current Hotel Saddleback includes a banquet hall and restaurant space that will be lost when the property is demolished.
A Builder’s Remedy Fight That Reshaped the Project
The scale of the approved project is notably smaller than what Brandywine originally proposed. According to Los Cerritos Community News, Brandywine had submitted plans under Senate Bill 330 to build 161 condominium units at the site and invoked California’s Builder’s Remedy provision, which allows developers to bypass local zoning when a city lacks a state-compliant housing element. That standoff ended with a March 2026 settlement that downscaled the plan to the 120 units now approved…