If you pull up a map of Orange County on Google Earth and zoom into the region’s center, you’ll find yourself staring at the Tustin Legacy development.
“It really is right in the middle” of OC, said Debra Fitzsimons, interim chancellor of South Orange County Community College District, speaking on the 1,606-acre former Marine Corps Air Station.
From a development perspective, Tustin Legacy can certainly stake a claim to being ground zero in the county as well, with a host of projects just built, in various stages of construction, or in the planning process.
The school district is one of the parties planning and recently completing more than 3 million square feet of commercial projects across the former base, not to mention future phases of residential development on portions of the land.
By way of comparison, the top-12 largest office, industrial, retail and hotel developers in OC completed a little more than 2 million square feet worth of commercial projects across the entire county over the 12-month period ending in April.
Projects in the works at Tustin Legacy run the gamut from office space, retail, medical buildings and educational facilities, with a total development cost likely to approach $1 billion or more.
Its central location—running from Jamboree Road to Red Hill Avenue, not far from the Santa Ana (5) Freeway—is a key selling point for the school district’s plan to build a hub of education-focused commercial properties on a 55.8-acre section on the northwest side of the development, Fitzsimons said.
“It’s one of the last developable parcels remaining” in the area, according to Fitzsimons, speaking last month as the school district began ramping up efforts to bring in new partners to its Advanced Technology & Education Park project, or ATEP.
The district is working with the Irvine office of brokerage NAI Capital to market the project, which will see businesses and development partners enter into a ground lease with the school district.
Retail’s Second Act
The area’s enviable location in OC already got the attention of retail developers.
The 112,000-square-foot Village at Tustin Legacy shopping center opened last month at the intersection of Edinger Avenue and Kensington Park Drive.
The estimated $40 million development, headed by Jacksonville, Fla.-based Regency Centers Corp., is anchored by a 44,000-square-foot Stater Bros. Market; other tenants there include a CVS and Dunkin Donuts.
It’s the second OC shopping center that Regency’s developed since last year when it opened The Village at La Floresta, a similar project in Brea.
The 22-acre Tustin site will soon have a medical component, as well: Hoag Health Center Tustin, a 60,000-square-foot medical office building that’s nearing completion.
It will be operated by Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, and located next to the retail buildings at The Village, whose tenant base is largely aimed at area and future residents at Tustin Legacy.
The Village will join The District at Tustin Legacy as the two main retail centers at the former base.
The District, a 984,000-square-foot project by Vestar Development Co. in Phoenix with financial backing from Kimco Realty Corp. in Hyde, N.Y., opened in 2007—just prior to the last recession—and was the first major commercial development at the former base.
Kimco quietly took over full ownership of the center this year, and recently refinanced a $206 million loan tied to about half of the center, regulatory documents show (see story, page 1).
Hangar Reuse
Retail, in one form or another, also looks likely to be a component of another large portion of the base.
San Diego-based mixed-use developer OliverMcMillan LLC was selected by the city in 2015 to turn a 123-acre chunk of land at Tustin Legacy into a “community core,” a pedestrian-friendly area likely to include large elements of commercial, entertainment and residential uses.
Specific details of the plan haven’t been announced yet, although it’s expected that one of the two historic, 17-story-high blimp hangars will be incorporated into the project.
A three-year planning process is expected to be completed next year, and the city is tentatively listing 2018 as when some groundbreaking could take place.
The lengthy planning process is “due to the existing physical complexity of the land to be reviewed and milestones that include programming and design charrettes,” the city has stated.
OliverMcMillan has previously mentioned the possibility of “sports-based uses” on the land. The Angels were previously reported to be exploring the site for a new stadium, but no longer appears interested.
The developer has cited similar types of large-scale, mixed-use projects it’s been working on in Atlanta, Houston and Hawaii, including former military base sites, as potential models for the project.
Financial terms of OliverMcMillan’s deal with the city haven’t been disclosed yet; the company remains in closed-door negotiations with the city over how much it would pay for the land.
Other commercially developable land at Tustin Legacy has sold for between $900,000 and $1.8 million an acre in the past few years, according to city documents.
Flight’s Takeoff
Office development is now in full force at the former base.
This summer, Flight, OC’s first ground-up creative-office campus, broke ground near the southwest edge of the city’s land.
The speculative development is a partnership between the Irvine office of Lincoln Property Co. and Boston-based real estate private equity firm Alcion Ventures.
The 18-building project will be built in two phases and ultimately total about 870,000 square feet.
The first phase will include eight offices, a stand-alone food hall and conference center, and will total nearly 400,000 square feet. The offices will be a mix of build-to-suit and for-lease buildings.
Steel is now going up for the first batch of offices.
Four of the offices will run between 73,718 square feet and 110,366 square feet, city filings show. Floor plates for the midrise buildings will be as large as 38,000 square feet, which is larger than what’s seen at traditional office buildings in the area.
The other four offices in the first phase are described as a “mini-campus” that will be designed for smaller users, and run between 6,500 square feet and 13,250 square feet each.
The city expects the first phase of Flight—which previously was called Cornerstone—to hold over 1,700 employees.
CBRE Group Inc. has the listing.
ATEP Advancing
A few minutes’ walk from Flight is the site of the planned ATEP campus, which has the potential to hold 1.7 million square feet of commercial space.
South Orange County Community College District took ownership of the land through a deal with the city of Tustin after the former helicopter base closed in 1999.
The school district includes Saddleback College in Mission Viejo and Irvine Valley College in Irvine; each has their own project moving ahead on the land.
Irvine Valley College is nearing completion of the first facility there, a 32,492-square-foot career technical education facility that will include a one-story fabrication shop and lab wing, in addition to offices and other space.
The $17.7 million project is scheduled to open early next year.
Also in the early development stages is Saddleback College’s 30,000-square-foot Center for Innovation and Healthcare Education, a regional simulated healthcare facility that will include a 300-person conference center.
The school district is aiming to sign deals for an additional 250,000 square feet at the campus over the next 12 to 18 months and wants its partners to start construction on part of it over that time, according to Fitzsimons.
At the education-focused campus, a variety of higher education institutions, research and development companies, high-tech manufacturing, medical-oriented firms and similar types of users are being targeted as potential occupants.
District students would in theory be trained on-site through internships and other collaborative opportunities to work at the companies on the campus.
More traditional office facilities, including corporate headquarters, are also a possibility, as is housing for up to 500 students, according to NAI Capital officials.
If more conventional product types are built, rather than pure educational facilities, ATEP’s total square footage would be reduced from 1.7 to 1.1 million square feet.
