IRVINE : Protection of Ranch Buildings to Be Urged

City officials will ask today that the historically significant buildings at the former Buffalo Ranch theme park be protected from demolition or relocation, which could be required for construction of the proposed San Joaquin Hills toll road.

The San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor Agency is scheduled to vote today on the alignment of a road that could threaten the buildings at Orange County’s first theme park.

On Tuesday, the Irvine City Council voted to urge the transportation agency to save “the most architecturally significant features” of the buildings, overriding the city Planning Commission’s recommendation last week that all buildings be preserved.

Buffalo Ranch, a 1950s drive-through amusement park that featured buffalo and a guide who was said to be the grandson of the Apache chief Geronimo, is threatened by a planned realignment and extension of Ford Road to link with the future San Joaquin Hills tollway.

The ranch buildings are now owned by Lange Financial Plaza, which keeps four buffalo on the site.

Tollway officials are proposing to move Ford Road about 900 feet to the north to reduce traffic noise at nearby homes in Newport Beach. Once the six-lane toll road opens, traffic on Ford Road is expected to double by 2010.

Moving the road could mean that some or all of the Buffalo Ranch buildings would have to be shifted to a different site on the property or to a different location entirely.

Irvine historian Judy Liebeck has spearheaded a local effort to save the Buffalo Ranch buildings at their original site, at Ford Road and MacArthur Boulevard.

Liebeck has pleaded with Irvine officials to fight to steer Ford Road around the buildings.

The corridor agency board, made up of 10 city representatives and two county supervisors, is scheduled to vote this morning on the alignment of Ford Road and to what extent the road will affect the old Buffalo Ranch/Lange Financial Plaza buildings.

Corridor agency staff will ask the board to approve the wording adopted by the Irvine City Council to preserve the historically significant buildings on the site if possible, said Macie Cleary-Milan, a senior environmental analyst for the toll road agency.

The meeting will be held at 10 a.m. in the Santa Ana City Council Chambers.