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Creative-Office Trend to Great Park

The developer of Great Park Neighborhoods in Irvine has earmarked a 73-acre portion of the former El Toro Marine Base for a commercial project featuring creative-office buildings, among others.

FivePoint Communities, the Aliso Viejo-based developer of the former Marine base, recently got city approval to turn land near the northwestern edge of the Irvine site into a mix of what it calls “multi-use, medical and science, and community commercial purposes.”

The project could run as large as 1.2 million square feet, according to city documents.

Creative-office buildings would be the centerpiece of the largest part of the project, with about 704,000 square feet.

The offices in the developer’s “creative campus” would run as tall as three stories and be “oriented in a park-like environment,” according to documents filed with the city.

Some more traditional office space running up to five stories high also is proposed as part of the development, according to those documents.

The commercial project would be just south of Trabuco Road, with the 1,300-acre Orange County Great Park to its immediate east and south.

The land previously was approved to hold several hundred homes and is to the south of Beacon Park, the 960-home second phase of residential development now under way at Great Park Neighborhoods.

Retail

Some retail buildings geared toward local residents also are proposed for the northern portion of the development site, which city filings describe as “Development District 1-South.”

The city of Irvine’s planning commission signed off on the revised land uses for the site in late December.

Those changes were part of a larger revision of plans proposed by FivePoint for more than 500 acres at Great Park Neighborhoods, including areas where several thousand more homes will go up in future phases of development.

The changes shifted types of development and buildings, as well as densities in various planning areas at Great Park Neighborhoods, but did not impact the total amount of residential and commercial development that is allowed on FivePoint’s 3,700-acre portion of the former Marine base.

FivePoint’s land is entitled to hold about 9,500 homes, in addition to nearly 5 million square feet of commercial and retail development. It is one of the largest remaining developable land sites in the county.

Irvine’s city council last week rejected an appeal of the planning commission’s December decision, which had been filed by Councilperson Beth Krom.

Krom objected to the lack of consideration of environmental, traffic and educational issues for the affected sites, largely pertaining to the residential portions of FivePoint’s project.

A time frame for the commercial project at District 1-South hasn’t been disclosed by the developer; representatives of FivePoint had not responded to requests for comment on the project by the time the Business Journal went to press.

The city describes the land where the project would be as “rough graded and vacant,” and it would appear to be ready to see construction relatively quickly if the developer moves forward on its plans.

FivePoint still needs to file a master plan for the project before moving ahead, according to the city. The project’s “architectural design and community theme are not yet known,” city filings note.

The site appears likely to be the next location of significant office construction at Great Park Neighborhoods following the first phase of development at Broadcom Corp.’s new corporate campus, which is on about 72 acres near the southern edge of the former Marine base.

The proposed project also would mark the next location of a large, ground-up creative office project in Orange County.

Creative-office projects—buildings featuring open workspaces, exposed ceilings, plenty of natural light, and a mix of indoor and outdoor meeting space, among other worker-friendly amenities—have become the hot product type for area office developers.

Much of the development in the area has been redevelopment of existing properties, but several new projects featuring a heavy dose of creative-office features are on tap to break ground this year.

Among those is a multibuilding, ground-up project at Orange County’s other big former military base in Tustin, which is scheduled to break ground this summer.

Tustin

The local office of Dallas-based Lincoln Properties Co. is heading up that project, called Flight at Tustin Legacy. The project will include a number of four-story office buildings and total about 523,000 square feet.

Newport Beach-based Irvine Company also has a pair of ground-up projects featuring creative-office aspects moving ahead in the Irvine Spectrum. The developer calls those projects “Next Gen Campus” offices.

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Mark Mueller
Mark Mueller
Mark is the Editor-in-Chief of the Orange County Business Journal, one of the premier regional business newspapers in the country. He’s the fifth person to hold the editor’s position in the paper’s long history. He oversees a staff of about 15 people. The OCBJ is considered a must-read for area business executives. The print edition of the paper is the primary source of local news for most of the Business Journal’s subscribers, which includes most of OC’s major corporate and community players. Mark’s been with the paper since 2005, and long served as the real estate reporter for the paper, breaking hundreds of commercial and residential real estate stories. He took on the editor’s position in 2018.
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