Irvine Company’s recent run of apartment development looks likely to continue in and around the Park Place mixed-use campus that runs along the San Diego (I-405) freeway in Irvine.
The Newport Beach-based real estate owner and developer has proposed building 980 apartments at Park Place, a nearly 105-acre office, retail and condominium campus at the corner of Jamboree Road and Michelson Avenue that’s largely owned by Irvine-based LBA Realty.
Irvine Co. is said to have recently closed a deal to buy several acres of unused land at Park Place from LBA for an apartment project, according to real estate sources. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed.
Additional apartments also have been proposed by Irvine Co. across the street from the main Park Place complex, according to filings with city planners.
Few details have been disclosed about the plans, and Irvine Co. officials were not available for comment last week.
Early-stage plans for both projects were filed with the city in December. The first project, tentatively called the Park Place Michelson Apartments, is expected to be taken up by city planners later this month.
A neighborhood park also is expected to be built alongside the 980-unit project, which appears slated for land at Park Place that now holds an unused parking lot. That site sits across the street from the headquarters of disk drive maker Western Digital Corp.
Much of the vacant land at Park Place that’s entitled for residential development was previously eyed as high-rise condo towers during the last housing boom.
Hiatus
Those for-sale projects are now on hiatus, replaced by apartment development—by far the most active sector of the commercial real estate market in Orange County the past year.
Irvine Co., OC’s dominant real estate company and its largest apartment owner, already has nearly another 3,500 local apartments in the works. Those projects are on land it already owns in the Irvine Spectrum and just off the Santa Ana (I-5) freeway, near its Woodbury and Stonegate communities.
A timeframe for when the Park Place apartment project could break ground has not been disclosed. Sources said they wouldn’t be surprised to see the development move ahead in earnest this year.
It would be the largest residential development to go up in the Irvine Business Complex, the largely commercial area around John Wayne Airport, in several years.
Other than the proposed Irvine Co. apartments, the largest multi-family development in the area that is expected to see work move ahead this year is a 9.1-acre former industrial site along Von Karman Avenue that’s slated to hold 469 apartments.
The recently razed Von Karman site had been owned by Los Angeles-based Kilroy Realty Corp., which is believed to be selling the land for upwards of $3.3 million an acre.
Irvine Co. is believed to be paying LBA—which is in the midst of an estimated $40 million renovation of the retail portion of the Park Place campus—a similar per-acre price for its land, sources said.
Second Project
City filings also show a second apartment project proposed by Irvine Co. across the street from the main Park Place campus.
Few details have been disclosed about the second project, including the exact location of the proposed development.
Early-stage city filings show the second project also holding 980 apartments, but it’s unclear whether those apartments are part of the initial Park Place Michelson Apartments project, or a separate development.
A timeframe for when the development plans for the second apartment project could be taken up by the city has not been disclosed.
