A year into the job, Colm Macken, head of Aliso Viejo’s Shea Properties, is starting work on the developer’s biggest project yet in Orange County.
Macken said he has big plans for Shea Properties’ next local project, overseeing about half of the 1,500-acre redevelopment of Tustin’s former Marine helicopter base.
“We’ve got 820 acres to play with,” said Macken, a former executive at Cleveland-based Forest City Enterprises Inc. who replaced the retired William Gaboury at the start of 2006.
Shea Properties, the commercial development arm of Walnut-based J.F. Shea Co., has been busy in South County as of late. It also has projects elsewhere in California, as well as in Arizona and Colorado.
The Tustin project ranks as one of the largest remaining developments in the county.
“We’re running out of land,” Macken said. “If you have the entitlements, you have to go for it.”
Shea Properties is working with Shea Homes, a homebuilder that’s also part of J.F. Shea, Dallas-based Centex Corp. and the city of Tustin on Legacy Park at the former base.
Legacy Park calls for 2,100 homes and 6.7 million square feet of offices, restaurants, shops and hotels in the next six to eight years. The entire Tustin site is set to see about 4,500 homes.
The local office of Miami’s Lennar Corp. and Newport Beach’s William Lyon Homes Inc. and John Laing Homes are building another 2,500 or so homes elsewhere on the former base.
Macken said he puts a development price tag on Legacy Park at about $3 billion. About two-thirds of that is tied to commercial development, with the rest being for homes.
There’s little chance of a change in plans in the event of a prolonged slump in housing or a downturn in the office and other commercial markets, Macken said.
The project broke ground last month.
For more on this story, see the Nov. 27 edition of the Business Journal.
