Work began Tuesday, March 19, demolishing another motel on Beach Boulevard that city officials say has been a problematic spot for crime and instead the land in the coming years could be redeveloped to have affordable housing.

The Anaheim Lodge, which opened in 1984 with 45 rooms, is the third motel demolished since 2021 as part of a city initiative to improve Beach Boulevard’s aesthetics and reduce crime.

“You demolish something that all it has done is bring crime, prostitution and drugs,” said Councilmember Jose Diaz, who represents the West Anaheim District 1. “Demolish it and build affordable homes, places where police officers, firefighters, teachers can move in and have a place to call home.”

The vision for revitalizing Beach Boulevard includes undergrounding power and utility lines, having brighter street lighting, installing cameras and turning decaying motels into affordable housing.

Diaz, who first moved to West Anaheim in 1999, said Beach Boulevard has gotten a lot better over the years. Now he sees families walking and “when a mom is pushing a stroller, that’s when I know the transformation has arrived,” he said.

The city bought the Anaheim Lodge in late 2022 for $7.6 million. City officials said that the area was a hotspot for illicit activity, with more than 450 police calls and arrests at the motel in 2021.

Motels on Beach Boulevard were once overnight destinations for travelers that linked Los Angeles and Orange County’s coast, but with time many became housing of last resort for people struggling financially. The Anaheim Lodge had 18 households living in it when the city bought the property.

Ten of those households were relocated to an extended-stay hotel, three received rent assistance vouchers, four did not qualify for assistance and one was evicted after declining help. The city spent $550,000 relocating people, according to officials.

The Anaheim Lodge is on the same block as another motel Anaheim recently bought and demolished, the Covered Wagon. That lot is now empty.

At a ceremony Tuesday morning, city officials watched an excavator begin tearing down the side of the building. The motel’s rooms were in a dilapidated condition.

City spokesperson Mike Lyster said construction could start on building affordable housing at the Anaheim Lodge and Covered Wagon sites by late 2025 or 2026. The plan is to have a mix of affordable apartments and purchasable townhomes, he said.

The city could buy more motels for demolition and conversion “where an acquisition makes sense,” Lyster said.

“Now I do recognize that for our neighbors change cannot come fast enough,” Mayor Ashleigh Aitken said, “but change is really happening on Beach Boulevard.”

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