Add plans for a sizeable new creative office project to Irvine’s busy development docket.
A 5-acre site near the intersection of Barranca Parkway and Von Karman Avenue is being prepped to become the site of a two-building office campus, according to recently filed city records.
The 2400 Barranca project would go up less than a mile from the new Flight creative office project which sits on the other side of Barranca and is part of Tustin’s former Marine base.
A Pasadena-based real estate investor with financial backing from China is behind the development, which is currently making its way through the city’s planning process. Updated plans for the project, including new renderings, were filed with the city’s planning commission earlier this month.
It would be the first Orange County project for Gemdale USA Corp., which bought the site in 2017 for $16.9 million, or nearly $243 square foot.
It currently holds a mostly vacant 45-year-old office totaling close to 70,000 square feet.
That office, which Gemdale calls R3 @ Irvine, would be demolished to make way for the new campus.
270K-SF Office
Current plans call for a pair of office buildings, one five stories and another running six stories, totaling nearly 275,000 square feet. The project would also include up to 1,500 square feet of accessory retail.
A seven-story parking structure with about 1,040 spaces is also envisioned.
Proposals indicate the campus will have an event lawn and amenities such as a gym.
The Irvine Business Complex site is the only reported OC asset for the developer, whose other investments include properties in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, New York, and Boston.
The company’s parent is Gemdale Corp., which the company describes as “one of China’s largest and leading real estate developers.”
Gemdale was founded in 1988 and is listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange with a market value of about $8.4 billion.
Company officials have declined to offer details on the project beyond what is in public records.
Boardwalk
The project would be about half the size of Trammell Crow Co.’s 545,000-square-foot The Boardwalk development along Jamboree Road in Irvine; the city’s last big speculative office project to be built in the vicinity of John Wayne Airport.
The two-building, nine-story complex Boardwalk project opened about 20 months ago; it is the largest new office development in the airport area of Irvine in about a decade. It’s currently about 95% leased, although several large tenants such as law firm Rutan & Tucker have yet to move in (see March 16 print edition of the Business Journal for details).
Next to Boardwalk, a mixed-use project called The Banc has city approval but has yet to break ground, it would feature a hotel, office space, a food hall and could run some 700,000 square feet. It’s headed by Irvine-based development group WGE Capital Group; the blocked-off 6.2-acre site currently holds a large sign honoring Kobe and Gianna Bryant.
Tustin Ties
Developers at Tustin’s Flight, a multibuilding creative office project now leasing nearby, have ties to Gemdale.
Dallas-based Lincoln Property Co., which unveiled the first phase of Flight in March 2019, has worked with Gemdale in other deals outside of Orange County, but is not part of the 2400 Barranca development.
Lincoln, which operates locally out of Costa Mesa, was involved with Gemdale’s entry in the United States market.
In 2014, the duo formed a joint venture to develop two office properties in San Francisco’s Financial District.
It was the first deal for Gemdale in the U.S. following a $350 million bond offering in 2012.
Senior Living
Along with Flight and the R3 @ Irvine site, the same stretch on Barranca has seen other developments move ahead, including a 208-room hotel now under construction and a 370-unit senior housing complex that got the go-ahead last year. Both of those projects are on the Irvine side of the street.
Dallas-based South Bay Partners Inc. is behind the senior living project, the first of its kind to open in Irvine in more than two decades.
The two-building, eight-story congregate care project would run about 424,000 square feet, and like Gemdale’s project would see existing, older buildings make way for new construction.
The South Bay project was approved in late 2018, but hasn’t broken ground.
