Downtown Santa Ana (DTSA), also called Downtown Orange County, is the city center of Santa Ana, the county seat of

Orange County, California Orange County (officially the County of Orange; often initialized O.C.) is a county (United States), county located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in Southern California, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the population ...

. It is the institutional center for the city of Santa Ana as well as Orange County, a retail and business hub. The Downtown Santa Ana Historic Districts are listed with the

National Trust for Historic Preservation The National Trust for Historic Preservation is a privately funded, nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that works in the field of historic preservation in the United States. The member-supported organization was founded in 1949 ...

and consist of numerous historic buildings across the area.

History

The City of Santa Ana was established in 1869 by William Spurgeon on of land purchased from the old Spanish land grant,

Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana was a Spanish land concession in present-day Orange County, California, given by Spanish Alta California governor José Joaquín de Arrillaga in 1810 to Jose Antonio Yorba and his nephew Pablo Peralta. The grant ex ...

. The

County of Orange The Principality of Orange (French language, French: Principauté d'Orange) was, from 1163 to 1713, a feudal state in Provence, in the south of modern-day France, on the east bank of the river Rhone, north of the city of Avignon, and surrounded ...

was formed in 1889 by William Spurgeon and James McFadden. Santa Ana was chosen as the county seat of government because of its larger growth as a town compared to surrounding towns such as

Orange Orange most often refers to: *Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis'' ** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower ** Orange juice *Orange (colour), the color of an orange fruit, occurs between red and yellow in the vi ...

. The Old Orange County Courthouse was built in 1901. The surrounding old town buildings make up the Santa Ana Historical Downtown.

Location

City studies and merchant associations generally define ''Downtown'' as the area between Ross Street on the west, Minter Street on the east, First Street on the south and Civic Center Drive on the north. Neighborhood organizations define Downtown more narrowly, extending only as far east as Main Street, with the area east of Main part of the Lacy neighborhood; the

Santa Ana Regional Transportation Center The Santa Ana Regional Transportation Center (shortened to Santa Ana Transit Center and also known as Santa Ana station) is a transit center in Santa Ana, California, United States. It is used by Amtrak's ''Pacific Surfliner'' and Metrolink's ...

train and bus station is located at the east end of Lacy along Santiago Avenue.

Sub-districts

Downtown consists of several sub-districts: an institutional area including the Civic Center, the Artists Village, Calle Cuatro and the East End.

Civic Center

The Santa Ana Civic Center, also known as the Orange County Civic Center, anchors the west side of Downtown and is home to city, county and federal buildings, including: City: *

Santa Ana City Hall Santa Ana (Spanish for ) is a city in and the county seat of Orange County, California, United States. Located in the Greater Los Angeles region of Southern California, the city's population was 310,227 at the 2020 census. As of 2023, Santa Ana ...

(Civic Center Plaza) *Santa Ana Civic Center Plaza (Ross, Civic Center, Santa Ana Blvd, Flower) *Santa Ana Public Library (Civic Center Dr. & Ross) County: *Santa Ana Transit Terminal –

Orange County Transportation Authority The Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) is the transportation planning commission for Orange County, California, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. OCTA is responsible for funding and implementing transit and capital projects for ...

(OCTA) (Santa Ana Blvd & Ross) * Old Orange County Courthouse (Civic Center, Broadway, Sycamore, Santa Ana Blvd.) *Orange County Courthouse (Civic Center Plaza) *Orange County Public Law Library (Civic Center Plaza) Federal: * Ronald Reagan Federal Building and United States Courthouse (4th & Broadway) *Fourth District Court of Appeals (Civic Center Plaza on the corner of Santa Ana Blvd & Ross) *Office of the District Attorney (Near the corner of Ross & Civic Center) *Consulate of Mexico (Near Civic Center & Broadway intersection)

Fourth Street/''Calle Cuatro''

Hospitality, entertainment and retail in Santa Ana's historic Downtown are centered along historic Fourth Street, also known locally by its equivalent name in Spanish, ''Calle Cuatro''. Fourth Street stretches from the Civic Center in the west. The West End, located between Ross Street, Broadway, and West 4th Street, across from the Ronald Reagan Building, has lounge cafés, restaurants, bars, concert theaters and other retail. The middle section of ''Calle Cuatro'' (roughly from Main east to Spurgeon) has retailersThe Rankin Building, 117W Fourth Street at Sycamore, is a historic building that was usually seen as a reminder of when the Downtown Santa Ana was a shopping center, with department stores such as Rankin's,

Montgomery Ward Montgomery Ward is the name of two successive U.S. retail corporations. The original Montgomery Ward & Co. was a mail-order business and later a department store chain that operated between 1872 and 2001; its common nickname was "Monkey Wards". ...

(northeast corner of Main, demolished),

J. C. Penney Penney OpCo LLC , doing business as JCPenney (colloquially Penney's and abbreviated JCP) is an American department store chain with 649 stores across 49 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. It is managed as part of the Catalyst Brands portfolio along ...

(northwest corner of Bush) and

Buffums Buffums, originally written as Buffums with an apostrophe, was a chain of upscale department stores, headquartered in Long Beach, California. The Buffums chain began in 1904, when two brothers from Illinois, Charles and Edwin Buffum, together wit ...

. Eventually, the area lost business to the new malls at

Honer Plaza Honer Plaza, now the Bristol Marketplace, at 17th and Bristol streets in northwestern Santa Ana, California, was one of the first shopping centers in Orange County, California and one of the busiest in the county in its early days. Plans were ann ...

and Santa Ana Fashion Square when they opened in 1958, and later on, to

South Coast Plaza South Coast Plaza is a regional shopping mall in Costa Mesa, California. The largest shopping center on the West Coast of the United States, its pre-COVID sales of over $1.5 billion annually were the highest in the United States. Its 275 retai ...

. The East End is a cultural hub, with restaurants and the refurbished Yost Theater. The Frida Cinema is a two-screen theater converted to an art-house theater showcasing films. In February 2015, the Fourth Street Market opened an indoor

food hall A food hall is a large standalone location or department store section where food and drinks are sold. Overview Unlike food courts made up of fast food chains, food halls typically mix local artisan restaurants, butcher shops and other food- ...

along the lines of

Grand Central Market Grand may refer to: People with the name * Grand (surname) * Grand L. Bush (born 1955), American actor Places * Grand, Oklahoma, USA * Grand, Vosges, village and commune in France with Gallo-Roman amphitheatre * Grand County (disambiguation) ...

Downtown Los Angeles Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) is the central business district of the city of Los Angeles. It is part of the Central Los Angeles region and covers a area. As of 2020, it contains over 500,000 jobs and has a population of roughly 85,000 residents ...

. Even further east, the

is located along Santiago Avenue in the Lacy neighborhood.

Artists Village

The Artists Village is an area composed of art galleries, studios, creative offices, design workshops, and several restaurants. It is located on Second Street at Broadway, in the center of Historic Downtown Santa Ana. The village extends from First Street to Fourth Street, Bush Street to Birch, and surrounding the Second Street Mall between Broadway and Sycamore Street. It was originally proposed in the mid-1980s. In collaboration between the Santa Ana City Council, community activist Don Cribb and

Cal State Fullerton California State University, Fullerton (CSUF or Cal State Fullerton) is a public research university in Fullerton, California, United States. With a total enrollment of more than 41,000, it has the largest student body of the California State ...

’s Gallery Director Mike McGee, a plan for the Grand Central Art Center was conceived in 1994. A designated ten-square block would become the Artists Village. In the early 2000s, several developments came to the downtown including Main Street Studio Lofts, East Village, and Artists Village lofts. The Artists Village has restaurants, shops and art institutions, including Cal State Fullerton Grand Central Art Center and the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art.

Historic districts

Located across several of the aforementioned sub-districts, the Downtown Santa Ana Historic Districts are several historic districts listed as one entry in the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

since 1984, covering and characterized by a number of

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...

buildings as well as two old movie houses (The West End and the Fox West Coast). The county's first courthouse, now a museum, is located at Civic Center and Broadway streets, as is the Howe-Waffle House and Medical Museum, now the Santa Ana Historical Preservation Society.The county's first theater, Walker's Theater, was built in 1909 on Main and Second streets adjacent to the old City Hall. The Main Street Studio Lofts is located on where the county's first movie house was used to be. Old Santa Ana was designated a

California Historic Landmark A California Historical Landmark (CHL) is a building, structure, site, or place in the U.S. state of California that has been determined to have statewide historical landmark significance. Criteria Historical significance is determined by meetin ...

(No. 204) on June 20, 1935.

Events

The village has several weekly, monthly, and annual events. Some of these events include: *1st Saturday Downtown Art Walk *Noche de Altares, largest free day of the dead celebration in California (the first Saturday of November) *Fiesta Patrias (September) *Savor Santa Ana *OC Pride Festival *Viva la Vida *Patchwork Craft Fair *Golden Years Vintage Market *Boca de Oro Arts & Literature Festival *Sound Downtown *The Blading Cup (every November)

National historic district

The

states that the Santa Ana Historical Downtown District is 'roughly bounded' by Civic Center Drive, 1st Street, Ross and Spurgeon. The historic district nomination form has a list of contributing properties and detailed maps of the area. The district consists of two sections with a total of 99 buildings that remain from the commercial code of Santa Ana. The buildings date from the late 1870s to the post earthquake reconstructions of 1934. The district is divided into two parts, north and south, due to a 'break' in the historic integrity. .

Historic Landmark

Historic Landmark at the site reads:

References

External links

City of Santa AnaSanta Ana Public Library

Santa Ana Historical Preservation SocietySanta Ana History Room Photograph CollectionCinematic Treasures—Closed Movie Theaters, Santa AnaNational Register of Historic Places
{{Santa Ana, California Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in California Buildings and structures in Santa Ana, California History of Santa Ana, California National Register of Historic Places in Orange County, California Neighborhoods of Santa Ana, California History of Orange County, California