A Northern California homebuilder announced plans to build 120 single-family houses across two new neighborhoods in Rancho Mission Viejo.
The new houses in Orange County are part of San Francisco Bay Area-based Trumark Homes’ larger play to add new housing in Southern California, with 450 residences planned for the region.
Trumark plans to build 56 single-family houses at Lotus at Rienda at Rancho Mission Viejo. The second development calls for 64 single-family houses at Rancho Mission Viejo’s Sapphire at Rienda.
The houses at Rienda would range from 2,769 square feet to 3,129 square feet, with three to five bedrooms and three to four-and-a-half bathrooms, plus a two-car garage.
Sapphire’s houses would range in size from 2,461 square feet to 2,823 square feet, with one to five bedrooms, one to four bathrooms, and a two-car garage.
Prices for both developments would start at about $1.6 million. One of the three floor plans offered at Lotus has already sold out.
Sapphire and Lotus are two of three neighborhoods to be built at Rancho Mission Viejo this summer.
Shea Homes unveiled its Arrowleaf neighborhood, with five-bedroom houses starting in the high $1 million range.
All three communities officially debuted on June 22.
Trumark also announced plans to open new houses for sale in Chino, Chino Hills, Covina, Escondido, Loma Linda and Redlands.
Richard Douglass, Southern California division president of Trumark Homes, said Orange County is a unique place to build homes, as there are only three master-planned developers in the region.
Douglass told the Business Journal that Rancho Mission Viejo is home to “the best real estate” in Orange County and is emerging as the next great development.
“We are committed to creating communities across Southern California that meet and exceed the needs of local homebuyers, while increasing the overall inventory to support the high demand,” Douglass said separately in a statement. “These exceptional new communities are already experiencing strong levels of interest from homebuyers looking to enter the market, as well as from existing homeowners who want to move up or down this year.”
Trumark has had a significant number of key employees working at its OC offices.
Rancho Mission Viejo
Sapphire and Lotus are both located in the Rancho Mission Viejo village of Rienda. The village includes a 20,000-square-foot lagoon-style pool, an open-air fitness center and four-lane lap pool.
Trumark’s new developments are part of the grand opening for Rienda’s third phase, which was scheduled for June 22. The village’s newest amenity, Boulder Pond, features a 3.5-acre water feature and playground areas.
The new houses are being developed as part of a larger master-planned development by developer Rancho Mission Viejo LLC. That master-planned development is slated to eventually have 14,000 houses and 5.2 million square feet of commercial space across 23,000 acres within the next 15 years.
The land that makes up Rancho Mission Viejo traces its roots to 1882, when San Franciscan James Flood, an investor in the famous Comstock silver mine, purchased a 200,000-acre parcel in Southern California. Flood sent Richard O’Neill Sr., an Irish immigrant who was a butcher, a bar keeper and a cattleman, to manage the parcel. O’Neill and eventually the Moiso family came to own the land.
In 1942, they sold the southern part to the Navy, which converted it into Camp Pendleton, and the remaining 52,000 acres became known as Rancho Mission Viejo.
Rancho Mission Viejo, the company, has since built 75,000 homes that house 225,000 people.
Rancho Mission Viejo was a winner of the Business Journal’s Family-Owned awards (see story this page).
Development on Rancho Mission Viejo’s last big parcel — 23,000 acres — began in 2013. The county government gave permission for development on 6,000 acres if the remaining 17,000 would be kept as a natural reserve.
Rancho Mission Viejo’s senior vice president of government relations, Mike Balsamo, said about 75% of the land was dedicated to “open space forever.”
Rienda is one of three villages already up and running at Rancho Mission Viejo. Sendero with 1,250 homes and Esencia with 2,800 homes are both completed. Rienda is about half completed, 1,250 homes out of 2,500 planned already online.
At buildout, about 14,000 homes in total will be spread among another five to six villages.
The company is also planning on 5.2 million square feet of commercial space, including retail, office and light industrial. About 553,000 square feet have been completed to date.
