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Half a Century of Retail Therapy

Both of Orange County’s largest retail malls, South Coast Plaza and Fashion Island, opened in 1967, and both are making plans for their 50th anniversary celebrations next year.
The late Henry T. Segerstrom would cringe at the mention of South Coast Plaza as a retail mall. He referred to his creation as a retail district or a retail resort. He liked to point out that South Coast Plaza’s annual sales, now near $2 billion, rivaled the retail sales in all of downtown San Francisco.

South Coast Plaza was one of the first covered retail centers in the nation. It is hard to remember that the center started out as a relatively straight mall with the May Co. department store at one end and a Sears at the other. Many of us still hunger for the Kaplan’s delicatessen that was located near the center.

Fashion Island is second in sales in Orange County, with an annual total nearing $700 million. An open retail center, Fashion Island was originally a straight but staggered mall with Robinson’s, Buffums, Broadway  and J.C. Penney department stores. Oldtimers recall the mall’s opening, when 10,000 eager shoppers descended on opening night.
Fashion Island’s current dynamic configuration was one of the first projects undertaken by Donald Bren when he took over the Irvine Co.

Will Porsche ride high?

A large, strikingly designed dealership for Porsche automobiles has been proposed for a 1.4-acre site on the inland side of West Coast Highway in Newport Beach, a portion of PCH designated as Mariner’s Mile. But residential neighbors in the exclusive bayside community of Bayshores across the street and the bluff-top community of Newport Heights above the site are concerned.

The site sits nestled into a bluff just north of Dover Drive and would require demolition of six single-story retail buildings on 11 lots, including The Cove, an iconic collection of small shops. Developer Russ Fluter purchased the sites when no one wanted the old buildings.

Proposed by AutoNation, which has three luxury dealerships – Porsche, Bentley and Audi – along East Coast Highway near the site, is a three-story, 37,347-square-foot dealership with interior display space for up to 12 cars on the ground floor. The proposed development is being reviewed by the city of Newport Beach with public input being sought.
Setting the Porsche dealership into its own new building would allow AutoNation to expand the Bentley and Audi dealerships into space currently occupied by Porsche.

Toll House

Toll Bros., the Pennsylvania-headquartered builder of luxury tract homes, is at it again, once more acquiring a large site for a residential community from landowners who typically sell smaller sites to several homebuilders.

Previously, Toll Bros. purchased a large site from the Irvine Co. near the Irvine Spectrum for its Hidden Canyon, where it developed 250 luxury homes ranging up to 5,700 square feet. Then, with Lennar Corp., Toll recently acquired 272 acres in FivePoint Communities’ Great Park Neighborhoods, where it plans to build 840 custom homes.

Now, once again to Irvine Co. land. Toll has acquired 161 acres in the Irvine Co.’s exclusive Orchard Hills village. Here Toll plans 223 extra-large homes in two neighborhoods named Alta Vista and Bella Vista. Homes will range from 4,653 to 6,085 square feet. No prices yet announced.

Law and Order at Irvine Spectrum

Law firms seek offices in locations that are both convenient and prestigious. As recently as 40 years ago, many major law firms were headquartered in Santa Ana, the county seat, but as Santa Ana faded and Newport Beach emerged as a prestigious address, law firms began to move there. Shortly after, Irvine became an acceptable address, as did Costa Mesa, when the area north of the 405 took the South Coast Metro designation.

Today, of the 25 largest law firms in Orange County, nine are in Irvine, all near John Wayne Airport; seven in Costa Mesa, all in South Coast Metro; six in Newport Beach, in Newport Center and near the airport. Only two remain in Santa Ana, and one is in Orange.

Now with completion of prestigious new office buildings and adjacent amenities, Irvine Spectrum is becoming the new locale for law firms. Four of Orange County’s  80 largest law firms are located in the Spectrum, and now a fifth – a larger firm – has announced its move there.

Jackson Lewis, with 28 attorneys specializing in workplace law, will move from offices in Newport Beach into the Irvine Co.’s landmark 200 Spectrum Center, the tallest building in Orange County.

The 400 Spectrum Center, a twin to the glass- and aluminum-faced 200, is well under construction and is leasing for a summer 2017 opening. Observers are eager to see which other law firms make the move.