Tustin Legacy Fills In Orange County
Shea Properties is developing 820 acres at the center of Orange County.
Randall Shearin

Tustin Legacy will feature unique retail below office and residential space.

As part of the Base Realignment and Closure Act (BRAC) passed by congress, many former military bases in the U.S. are being decommissioned and placed into the hands of private developers. Shea Properties, the commercial development arm of J.F. Shea Co., Inc , one of California’s largest developers, holds the opportunity to redevelop the former Marine Corps Air Station Tustin in Orange County, California.

Shopping Center Business recently spoke with Colm Macken, president and CEO of Shea Properties, to discover the plans that the company has for Tustin.

The first thing to note is that Tustin Legacy will be one of the largest development projects underway in California over the next few years. At 820 acres in a prime spot in Southern California, Shea is developing commercial property as well as residential space on the site. Shea Properties is the master developer of Tustin.  The company plans 2,100 homes and more than 6 million square feet of commercial space.

The commercial portion of Tustin Legacy will have 350,000 square feet of retail, restaurants and shops, and 6 million square feet of Class A office space. The company also has incredible interest from hotels, and is expecting to locate three to four hotels on the property. Shea is also leaving 170 acres for open space and parks. Elkus Manfredi, RTKL and Skidmore Owens & Merrill are a few of the architecture firms involved in the design and plan of Tustin Legacy.

“We really have an internationally renowned team of architects to work on the project,” says Macken.

Vestar has recently developed a power/lifestyle center, The District at Tustin Legacy, which opened this summer. This area of Orange County needs housing and retail.

“This is the biggest infill property in the market, and it’s just 2 miles from John Wayne Airport,” says Macken. “The problem with so much of the commercial product that is in the market is that you have to drive from one use to the next. The strength of Tustin Legacy is in the mix of uses.”

Macken wants office tenants to avoid using their cars to go to lunch and dinner. He also wants to create a walking environment. Dining establishments will be critical to the area’s success, and Tustin Legacy has had a lot of interest from restaurants. The office component will create a daytime population in the area of 25,000, and the hotels will add significantly to that. The residential market is already strong. Within the core of the project, which will have the bulk of the office and retail space, there will also be 900 residential units. The core of the project has been laid out in city blocks, so that Tustin Legacy will have a city feel. Each architecture firm has been assigned a block and a use. One architect, RTKL, is putting together the parameters that will bring the project together.

“The project will be drawn together by the street architecture, the graphics and the landscape,” says Macken.

The master plan of Tustin Legacy shows the scale of the project.

For the retail component, about 150,000 square feet has been set aside for inline shops. Shea is looking for unique tenants not already in the market. It has been looking for successful L.A. boutiques who want to open their flagship Orange County locations. The 150,000-square-foot inline shop portion will line both sides of three blocks. Other tenants, like a gourmet grocery store and plenty of restaurants, will make up the balance of the 200,000 square feet of additional retail. All of the retail will be opened over time, with the inline and some restaurants coming in the first phase. With heavy hitting competitors like Fashion Island, Irvine Spectrum and South Coast Plaza nearby, Shea is being careful not to create what is already in the market.

“We’re not going to have boxes and anchors that will draw away from those three leading centers,” says Macken. “We have to do something different. We are going to anchor the streets with restaurants and fill in with unique tenants.”

Macken envisions an area like Los Angeles’ Robertson Boulevard or Abbott-Kinney. Main & Main is serving as the retail broker for Shea Properties.

On the office side, Shea has had interest from about 500,000 to 700,000 square feet of space already. The first phase of the center, which is expected to contain 750,000 square feet of office space, will open fully in 2010. Cushman & Wakefield is serving as the broker for the office space.

Shea Properties has already broken ground on Tustin Legacy, and buildings will begin to rise from the ground during 2008. It will open the first phase of the project in stages from 2009 to 2010. The housing component is expected to be fully built within 6 to 7 years. The commercial component will be built out over the next 10 to 12 years. The entire project is estimated at $3.2 billion.