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Tuesday, Mar 19, 2024
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Great Park Grind; Muscos’ Other Gift; Call for Oregon Wall

Mere coincidence on news of a $1 billion loan from China Development Bank Corp. to Lennar Corp., with the money earmarked for two projects in San Francisco overseen by Emile Haddad and Aliso Viejo-based FivePoint Communities, which counts Lennar as an investor? Reports of the loan came last week as tensions simmered at the Great Park. The Insider hears from observers that Haddad’s patience with Irvine pols is wearing thin as he looks to get on with the development of homes at the former Marine base. The Great Park is strapped for cash to back plans of building a civic centerpiece that would be ringed by Five Point residential developments. Word has it that some members of the nine-seat Great Park board—which includes all five members of the Irvine City Council and has gone through $200 million in funding with relatively little to show at the 1,300-acre parcel—are pressing Haddad. Seems they want him to do more than the $40 million FivePoint has already committed to the development of public amenities at park. The loan from China doesn’t touch on the Great Park, but it gives FivePoint a link to some deep pockets, and plenty to do up north. Haddad was out of the country last week and couldn’t be reached for comment …

Chapman University President Jim Doti has no doubt thanked philanthropist Paul Musco for the gift he and his wife, Marybelle, gave to Brandman University in Irvine, which is part of the Chapman system and now home to the Marybelle and S. Paul Musco School of Nursing and Health Professions. Doti had another thank you for the Muscos during Chapman’s economic forecast last week— this one for the presence of their granddaughter, Gabriella David, as a student-athlete on Chapman’s campus in Orange. She was a defender and co-captain of the Panthers women’s lacrosse team, and “an MVP for most of the games” last season, Doti said …

Someone build a wall on the Oregon border. Maybe that will stop the University of Oregon from poaching OC talent. The first raid came when the Ducks got Cal State Fullerton baseball coach George Horton to move north before the 2008 season. He was hired to rebuild a program that had been dormant for 27 years, and he’s gotten the job done, this year taking his team to the cusp of their first appearance in the College World Series since 1954. Now the University of Oregon has grabbed UCI Vice Chancellor and Provost Michael Gottfredson as president. The Insider hears that this wasn’t the first time Gottfredson had been approached with an offer …

Washington Nationals rookie Bryce Harper has been quick to put his phenom status to work, with some help in OC. The 19-year-old Harper recently got testy with a query from a reporter, telling him: “That’s a clown question, bro.” It went viral, and Harper quickly sought a trademark for the phrase in an application filed by Kit M. Stetina, an intellectual property lawyer in Aliso Viejo. Harper took the step after a brew pub in Denver put the phrase on a batch of beer. He also asked the brew pub to donate to a fund he set up for a recently slain Denver cop.

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