Linked from Orange County Register
May 14, 2013
By KIMBERLY PIERCEALL / ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
$172 million – that’s the latest offer from the private developer building homes and commercial space next to the Great Park that could be used to finish 750 acres of the massive metropolitan park that’s been in development for more than a decade.
About 200 of the park’s more than 1,300 acres on former El Toro Marine Base land have been developed by the city of Irvine so far with about half leased for farming. Sports fields, a reflecting pond and a visitors’ center are expected to be finished this summer.
Emile Haddad, president and CEO of FivePoint Communities, with conceptual plan maps of a future Great Park he had proposed building last September. Last week, he made an updated offer.
FivePoint Communities, the developer of some 5,000 future homes north of the park called Great Park Neighborhoods, wants another 5,806 homes in return for building the rest of the park, said Jeff Lalloway, Irvine councilman and chair of the Great Park Corp.’s board of directors. Lalloway and Irvine Mayor Steven Choi are on a subcommittee that’s been negotiating with FivePoint’s CEO Emile Haddad.
Last September, the developer revealed a design for some 1,000 acres left at the park that would feature more athletic fields and ignore other elements approved in the park’s master plan including a man-made two-mile-long canyon. That plan involved FivePoint spending $211 million to build the park. The new $172 million offer is lower because the latest proposal includes FivePoint giving the city 125 acres more for the park.
The offer, to be more specific, involves FivePoint spending $132 million to build the park and $40 million from bond revenues that would be used for capital improvements. The bond revenue will be paid off by future homeowners of the Great Park Neighborhoods development who will pay an annual community facilities district fee.
Nothing has been agreed on, though.
“We have a lot of work to do,” Lalloway said. FivePoint has proposed installing about 24 multi-use fields, a soccer stadium, tennis courts, baseball and softball fields, volleyball courts, and more for handball and other sports, he said.
The developer would also develop more than 220 acres for either open space or a golf course, Lalloway said.
Councilwoman and Great Park vice chair Christina Shea said she wants to see a golf course in particular – at least 18 holes – come to the park. She has been meeting with the principals of FivePoint Communities on her own separate from the subcommittee with Lalloway and Choi. Lalloway said he’s asked staff to look into the economics of a golf course.
After emerging from the quicksand of a recession, FivePoint has been moving quickly to catch up with “what we would have liked to do before,” Haddad said. Earlier this month, Haddad closed deals to sell the first 726 home sites in his Great Park Neighborhoods development to eight home builders. They’ll start construction on model homes this month and begin selling homes in the fall.
Councilwoman and former Great Park Corp. Chairwoman Beth Krom said she thinks the developer might be finding the new political environment in Irvine, a Republican-controlled City Council, more favorable in allowing it to take over the public development of the park. “There are many parties that have interests,” said the councilwoman, a Democrat. “I’m here for the public interest.”
