A four-building, 285-unit residential project now going up at the busiest intersection in the city of Irvine will largely put a cap on housing development at Central Park West, one of the first and largest new communities to be built in the Irvine Business Complex over the past two decades.
A unit of Irvine’s Western National Group is heading up construction work at the site at the corner of Jamboree Road and Michelson Drive, just off the San Diego (405) Freeway.
The site’s largely stood fenced off and vacant for over a decade, with rental properties, for-sale homes and varying amounts of retail all reportedly considered for portions of the area at different times.
Construction activity at the site is now well underway, with the project going vertical over the past month.
Plans now call for a quartet of seven-story buildings, with two levels of parking. A clubhouse, and a 2-acre pool and amenity deck are among the project’s unique features.
Noise Alleviation
City records indicate the project, dubbed Lexington, is being built for a unit of Miami-based Lennar, which has its West Coast office in Irvine. Whether the project, which will total nearly 1 million square feet when built out, will be for-sale or rentals hasn’t been disclosed yet.
Less than 10,000 square feet of resident-serving retail is also on tap for the site, according to Los Angeles-based Kevin Tsai Architecture, whose project renderings for Lexington indicate a mix of coloring for various levels of the project.
“Given the proximity of the busy 405 freeway, and the adjacent intersection, the darker materials at the base of the building provide resiliency and offer additional protection from noise and air pollution at the residential units facing the street,” the architect’s website indicates.
The “smooth white façade at the top appears to float above the darker base of the building and has larger glazing elements and inset patios to optimize light and air while also maintaining an appropriate level of privacy for the tenants,” it says.
Construction is expected to be completed around the end of 2022, according to vendors working on the project.
Among the unique features of the site, a “public plaza at the corner of Jamboree and Michelson includes an outdoor dining platform, even more landscaping and a 11-ft tall waterfall feature to mask the noise at this busy intersection,” according to the architect.
2004 Start
The project serves as a reminder of the lengthy timeline it has taken the developers of Central Park West to complete the build-out of the nearly 43-acre site.
It’s a story other real estate firms envisioning larger developments elsewhere near the airport are also experiencing (see story, page 34).
The one-time site of a Parker Hannifin Corp. industrial facility was initially tapped for a residential project in 2004.
That’s when Lennar (NYSE: LEN) paid a reported $100 million for a majority stake in the property. Lennar envisioned the site as the first urban master-planned community located in the Irvine Business Complex, the then-largely commercial area surrounding the airport.
Thousands of homes and apartments have been built in the IBC since then, with new project starting to wind down as developers have hit the cap for housing in the area.
Development has proceeded in pieces at CPW since its inception, with several changes in plans to the site as market conditions fluctuated.
Initial Hiatus
Central Park West will hold about 1,380 homes upon buildout.
The first 500 townhomes and flats at the project were mothballed in mid-construction in late 2007, amid the rough housing and mortgage markets at the time. Only a few sales had been made prior to that decision.
Company officials said at the time that they preferred postponing sales rather than offload the homes at steep discounts.
The mothballing strategy didn’t apply for Astoria, the two-building condominium project of about 240 units built in the back corner of the development, along the freeway.
Astoria opened in 2009 but failed to generate much sales momentum. It was turned into an upscale, for-rent project by 2011.
Apartments at the complex now count monthly rents starting at more than $5,000 for two-bedroom units, according to the complex’s website.
Lennar resumed home sales for the remainder at Central Park West in 2010. Outside of Astoria, the community doesn’t have any for-rent projects.
